Rays Hand Yankees Another 'Embarrassing' Loss, Win 9-0 to Pull Within 5 Games of AL East Lead
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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — There's nothing wrong with a little ''kick-'em-while-they're-down'' attitude in sports, especially when the recipient is the 27-time world champion New York Yankees, who have doled out more than their fair share of pain through the years.
But Friday night, in a massively important American League showdown with the Yankees and Tampa Bay, it was the upstart Rays who did all the bullying. Tampa Bay broke open a close game late with two runs in the seventh and six more in the eighth, winning 9-0 before 17,886 fans at Tropicana Field.
The win was huge for the Rays, who are now 73-57 on the season and just five games behind the Yankees in the AL East race. They are 16 games over .500 for the first time all year and are just four games behind New York in the loss column.
The race is definitely on.
Jeffrey Springs was great on the mound for the Rays, pitching 5 2/3 scoreless innings and allowing just four hits. The Rays bullpen took it from there, pitching 3 1/3 scoreless innings and allowing just one hit. He is 7-4 on the year, and lowered his ERA to 2.62 on the season.
"The score of that game was not the story of that game the way it ended up,'' Rays manager Kevin Cash said. "Springs was really good. He executed the change-up well and had the fastball right at the top of the zone, getting strikes up there when he needed them.
"We finished off a good road trip and we wanted to come in and set a good tone and win the first one, and we did.''
The Yankees' free-fall continues. They were once 61-23 this season, and were talking about being the greatest team ever. They are 79-53 now, going just 18-30 in the past two months.
They did nothing on Friday night, with not a single morsel of good to come out of it. They had only five hits all night, and made three errors, including two errors in the fourth inning that led to the first run of the game.
Springs kept them off-balance all night, and made big pitches when he had to in the first, third and sixth inning, when the Yankees got two men on base in each inning. Springs left with two outs in the sixth inning after throwing 97 pitches. JT Chargois got an out to end the inning.
Chargois also got the first two outs in the seventh inning, and then lefty reliever Colin Poche struck out Oswaldo Cabrera to end the inning. Jason Adam pitched a perfect eighth with two strikeouts, and Calvin Faucher closed it out, pitching a scoreless night and allowing just one hit.
Tampa Bay Rays first baseman Christian Bethancourt (14) reacts after hittting a two-run home run against the New York Yankees in the seventh inning. (Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports)
The Rays blew open a tight game in the seventh. Isaac Paredes drew a one-out walk off of Yankees starter Domingo German, and Cash had the speedy Jose Siri pinch-run for him. German, possibly distracted a bit, grooved a first-pitch changeup to Rays catcher Christian Bethancourt, who smacked it into the seats in left-center, giving the Rays a 3-0 lead.
It was his ninth home run of the season, and German was angry that he gave up the home run, calling Bethancourt the ''worst hitter in their lineup.''
The Rays scored sixth times in the eighth inning, and it was the ninth time this year that they've scored five runs or more in an inning. It's the fourth time they've done in the past four weeks.
The Rays had five singles in the inning, a double, three walks and a hit batter to turn it out a rout.
It's big, for sure. Every game from here on out is important,'' Rays starter Jeffrey Springs said. "Any time we can start a series like that, it's really big. To shut out a team like that, that's a big thing because they are really good. But we've got a lot of good arms and we feel like we match up with them really well. I stuck to my strengths and tried to get bad swings.''
"That's an embarrassing loss," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "Hopefully, it's one of those rock-bottom situations, where you should be pissed off and embarrassed. We've set a better standard around here. We just got to be better. Period."
It's not the first time the Rays have embarrassed the Yankees lately. Outside of winning the AL East in 2020 and 2021 — something that haunts the Yankees — it's the Rays who usually hang the biggest blowout losses on them. This was their worst loss of the year, and the worst since last October with the Rays beat them 12-2. Three of the Yankees' last four losses by nine runs or more have come against the Rays.
"It's just embarrassing when you get beat like that and you're going through the struggles you are," Boone added. "I'm in charge of this team. What we're going through right now, I know better than anyone, there's going to be hard moments and hard times. I do think the effort's there, I think the care is there. But we've set a much better standard in that room that we've got to start living up to."
The two teams meet again on Saturday night at Tropicana Field, with Corey Kluber (9-7, 4.21 ERA) starting for the Rays against the Yankees' Clarke Schmidt. He is 5-3 on the year with a 2.89 ERA.
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