Baseball's Next Best Rivalry: Yankees Take Notice of 'Talented' Rays as Bad Blood Brews
NEW YORK — Some say the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is the best in all of sports. Historically that's true in more ways than one, but this weekend proved another club has positioned itself with the Yankees as not only the biggest threat to dethrone New York atop the American League East, but the team that has leapfrogged Boston by bringing the most bad blood with the Bombers.
The Tampa Bay Rays took three-of-four games against the Yankees at Tropicana Field in a weekend set full of power pitching and hitting, prowess in both bullpens and some of the most analytically minded individuals in the game.
For just the fifth series of the season, and no fans in the stands, these contests had a playoff atmosphere. All but one game come down to the very final pitch.
New York's contention in 2020 and beyond is a foregone conclusion. Aaron Judge is off to an MVP-caliber start, DJ LeMahieu seems to roll out of bed and churn out multi-hit performances, depth on both sides of the ball continues to impress and Gerrit Cole has pitched as advertised to start his tenure in pinstripes.
Throughout the weekend in Tampa, however, the Yankees recognized the fact that this Rays team isn't one to underestimate.
"They’ve always got a good team for one," longest-tenured Yankee Brett Gardner said on Sunday. "I’ve been here a long time and as long as I can remember, they’ve always played us tough. Especially down here at the Trop."
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When Gardner made his big-league debut back in 2008, the Rays were en route to winning the American League pennant. While the organization hasn't made it past four divisional round playoff appearances since then, the outfielder is spot on in his evaluation, prefacing the Rays above all other clubs "always play up to or above their potential."
Losing a series at Tropicana Field is also a trend Yankees fans have grown accustomed to over the years. In the last decade, New York has posted a winning record on the road against this slippery foe in only one season (2015). Factor in a four-game losing streak to end last year and the Yankees have now lost seven of their last eight games hosted by the Rays.
"We play them close just about every time that we’re [in Tampa] or at our place so you’re prepared for it," Yankees' interim closer Zack Britton said after surrendering a walk-off single in the ninth inning on Sunday.
It doesn't take Britton being part of one of the game's best bullpen and pitching staffs to recognize that the Rays are this dangerous because of their quality of arms up and down their roster.
"A lot of different arm angles," Britton explained. "Just high-quality arms, very similar to our bullpen. It’s a battle between which bullpen is going to be sharper and they were sharper than us."
Any pedestrian baseball fan will recognize the likes of ace Blake Snell—who won the American League Cy Young Award in 2018—and right-hander Charlie Morton—who finished one spot behind Cole for third in the same race this past year. But those starters at the helm of this club's dynamic rotation are just the tip of the iceberg.
There's phenom and flamethrower Tyler Glasnow, reliever Chaz Roe (who has the most horizontal movement on a slider in all of baseball per Statcast), Oliver Drake (a right-hander with the release point of a southpaw) and Nick Anderson (Tampa's version of Chad Green, capable of shutting the door in any frame) just to name a few.
"They bring in righties that throw hard, they’ve got guys with good off-speed pitches and guys with good game plans," Green said on Sunday. "I think that’s one thing that we take away from their pitching staff is they always seem to know exactly what they’re trying to do."
On two different occasions over the weekend, Tampa threw six different pitchers at the Bombers with each hurler tossing three innings or less. In those two contests, Rays pitchers allowed a total of three runs combined with one of the games being a 1-0 shutout win.
"They’re a good team, a talented team," left-hander James Paxton said after his outing on Sunday. "We’re going to be battling it out with them all year long. I know it’s a short season but we’ll see them again and we’ll be fighting it out with them the rest of the way I’m sure."
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Despite scoring 174-fewer runs than the Yankees a season ago, the Rays were only seven games behind their division rival in the AL East winning 96 games. After breezing through the AL Wild Card Game, Tampa took the Astros to a decisive Game 5 in the ALDS, winning the same amount of games against Houston that the Yankees did in the following series.
"You know when you come here and play these guys that runs are going to be at a premium," Yankees' manager Aaron Boone said Friday night. "They’re very good at run prevention, they do a really good job of that, they have a lot of quality arms, they match up really well."
So sure, the Rays are contenders. After all, more of Sports Illustrated's MLB staff writers picked Tampa Bay to make the World Series this year than the mighty Yankees in a truncated 60-game season. That in itself is proof this up-and-coming club is poised to be a threat past the first round of the playoffs this year.
Beyond some close games and a pair of talented rosters, however, what is it exactly that makes this rivalry even more intense?
The answer is these two teams don't like each other. At all.
That animosity nearly reached a boiling point over the weekend.
As Paxton walked off the mound on Sunday afternoon—moments after surrendering back-to-back home runs to squander a three-run Yankees lead in the seventh—the left-hander glared over at the Rays' dugout. After the game, he and his manager explained nothing specific had been said, but jawing back and forth from both benches was a constant trend throughout all four contests in the tight series.
In the nightcap of Saturday's doubleheader, both Boone and Yankees' hitting coach Marcus Thames were thrown out by home-plate umpire Vic Carapazza. The duo had been chirping, attempting to defend their hitters after a trio of up-and-in pitches came dangerously close to hitting the likes of Gio Urshela and LeMahieu in the head.
After the game, Aaron Judge explained that the chatter was about the history, referencing right-hander Andrew Kittredge—who threw on Saturday—and how the right-hander had thrown at the head of ex-Yankees backstop Austin Romine in 2018.
"You don’t usually forget stuff like that," Judge said. "And for them to continue to throw up and in, that’s tough. We’ve got a lot of big hitters up there and we know they’re going to throw in but to miss that far up and in that many times, you’re going to hear barking from the dugout."
Rays' second baseman Brandon Lowe—who hit the game-tying homer off Paxton on Sunday—took exception to the Yankees' response to the situation, calling it "a little childish."
"They’ve been chirping the whole weekend and we chirped at them once and they got upset about it,” Lowe told reporters. “That was really the whole thing of it was, they’ve kind of been loud about everything and we did it back and they didn’t like it."
The tension simmered and benches never cleared—both managers chalked it up to competitiveness later on—but you didn't have to be in the Trop over the weekend to see that bad blood is brewing between these two clubs.
As Green put it, for Kittredge to throw up and in multiple times times, it's hard not to think some sort of intent was behind it.
"As a pitcher, you know where the ball is going the majority of the time," he said. "Every once in a while, one can slip but when it happens over and over again, I think hitters do take exception to it. I mean we wouldn’t be at this level unless we knew where it was going so when it happens over and over again you raise an eyebrow and wonder what’s going on. I think our guys had every right to say something and that’s what we did."
The Yankees and Rays have six more games scheduled (coronavirus permitting) through the rest of the season. All six will be played at Yankee Stadium, a venue where those in pinstripes have dominated the Rays in recent years. But after a series like this one, there's unfinished business coming from both sides.
"Anytime somebody throws at somebody's head, you don't forget that," Judge said.
For the rest of this season and beyond, these two teams will be battling it out for AL East supremacy, the type of rivalry that ought to be on the national stage in prime time.
The only question remaining is will the Bombers slug their way to a second-consecutive division title or will they get stung?
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