New York Yankees 5 — Tampa Bay Rays 11
With five wins in a row, the Yankees turned to the veteran righty, Hiroki Kuroda, to keep the streak going against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Through the first three innings, everything was going the Yankees way. In the second and third inning, Hiroki Kuroda would induce two double plays to keep the Rays off the scoreboard. On the offense side, the Yankees faced veteran Erik Bedard. In the second inning, two consecutive singles would start the game. Kelly Johnson would hit a ground ball to a diving James Loney who would hit baserunner Yangervis Solarte with the ball to continue the inning with the bases loaded and no outs. Scott Sizemore would continue the feel good story of his return with a deep double to left center field to clear the bases. Ichiro Suzuki would drop a bunt down that Evan Longoria fielded and would initially get the speedy outfielder at first base.
Challenge overturns the call and Ichiro is safe at first, Sizemore at third. Brett Gardner would hit a sharp ground ball to second baseman Ben Zobrist but an easygoing Yunel Escobar didn’t make a strong throw to get the speedy Gardner at first base to allow a fourth run to score.
Four-run lead after three innings, that’s good enough for a win right? Oh, wait, we have to play nine.
Kuroda cruised through the first three innings of the game on 32 pitches. Kuroda would get the first two outs of the fourth inning but the third out would be hard to find. Matt Joyce would walk and Evan Longoria would continue hitting Yankees pitching with a single. James Loney would hit a double to left field and the Rays scored two to cut the Yankees lead in half. Wil Myers would get another hit in the inning but Kuroda would keep the lead. The fourth inning took more pitches (35) than the first three (32).
Kuroda would respond with a quick fifth inning but the sixth inning would be one last struggle for the veteran righty. Matt Joyce and Evan Longoria would get a pair of hits and with two outs, Wil Myers would get the last hit of Kuroda’s night to bring home the third run on Kuroda’s pitching line. David Phelps would finish off the inning.
In 5.2 innings, Hiroki Kuroda would allow three runs on seven hits with two walks and two strikeouts. He didn’t have his best stuff but he made the most of a difficult situation.
David Phelps would give up one single before getting an out the hard way. Phelps would take a baseball in the side before getting the second out of his appearance. He would leave the game due to this. Matt Thornton would come in. Derek Jeter would make a heads-up play, getting the lead runner out on a ground ball in front of him. Unfortunately, the heads-up play would go for nothing as the wheels were spinning in both dugouts.
Desmond Jennings came in as a pinch hitter against new pitcher, Adam Warren. A single would bring home one run to make it a one run game. Warren would walk Longoria to load the bases and James Loney would hit the big blow, a two-run single to complete the comeback for the Rays.
After a two-out double, Sean Rodriguez would hit the two-run home run to provide insurance for the Rays in a rare bad outing by Adam Warren. Entering tonight’s game, Warren had allowed two hits while striking out seven over seven scoreless innings. In one inning of work tonight, Warren allowed three runs on four hits while walking one and striking out one.
After the home run, reliever Cesar Cabral would come in to mop-up the messy game but he would have one of the more dreadful innings a reliever could have. Zobrist would hit a single and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Brandon Guyer would get his first hit of the game to make it a 9-5 game. Cabral would hit the next two batters, Longoria and Loney, to reload the bases. Wil Myers would hit a two-run single to make it 11-5 and Cabral’s last batter faced would be Logan Forsythe, who Cabral hit with a pitch.
Home plate umpire Joe West ejected Cabral, likely for the safety of the batters, not for intent to injure. Cabral faced six batters and allowed three hits while hitting three batters and throwing a wild pitch. A fitting ending to describe the state of the game by the end.
In 2.1 innings, the Yankees bullpen allowed eight runs on nine hits. The bullpen had a scoreless streak of 16.1 innings entering tonight.
Win – Jake McGee (1-0)
Loss – Adam Warren (0-1)
Notables
Yankees
*Scott Sizemore – 1 for 3, R, 2B, 3 RBI (4)
*Jacoby Ellsbury – 2 for 5, R
Rays
*James Loney – 2 for 4, 2B, 4 RBI (9)
*Wil Myers – 3 for 5, 3 RBI (7)
Current Yankees Record: 10-7
