Rays Say Goodbye to Tough Month After 7-4 Loss to Division Rival Yankees
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The Tampa Bay Rays will be the first to welcome August.
With their 7-4 loss to the New York Yankees on Thursday, the Rays finished July with a 7-18 mark. They entered the month 1 1/2 games out of first place in the American League East. They end it 10 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays, losers of three consecutive games and two of 10.
On Thursday, the Rays fell into a 7-0 hole early before putting together a four-run fourth inning to get back into the game.
Yandy Diaz, Chandler Simpson and Jonathan Aranda all left the game with injuries before a rain delay that lasted nearly three hours brought the game to a halt in the fifth inning. Moreover, the Rays traded José Caballero to the Yankees mid-game.
Aranda was injured when his hand became wedged against Giancarlo Stanton in an attempt to tag out New York’s slugger at first base. Fortunately, Aranda’s X-rays came back negative.
“There’s a lot of pain. I've never felt that anything like that before,” Aranda said after the game. “Everything was negative on the X-ray. Tomorrow we’ll see our doctor and see what happens.”
With the defeat, the Rays dropped their seventh series in July. Tampa Bay came out on the winning end of one series the entire month.
With the trade deadline behind them, the Rays look to get back in the win column after falling to 54-56 and seventh in the wild card race.
“Now we say goodbye to July,” Rays second baseman Brandon Lowe said. “We can all relax and take a deep breath in this clubhouse and get back to what we're used to doing.”
The Rays return home to face the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday at 7:35 p.m. ET as Shane Baz (8-7, 4.61 ERA) faces Clayton Kershaw (4-2, 3.62 ERA).
Don Strouble is a sports journalist who covers Tampa Bay Rays baseball and other sports for the ‘’On SI’’ network. He is a Northeast Ohio native and currently lives in Orlando, Fla.
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