Things get heated in St. Pete as the Yankees pummel the Rays to take season series.
If it could go wrong, it absolutely did go wrong for the Rays on Thursday afternoon. Poor pitching as well as stifled bats led to a 12-1 loss in the series finale at Tropicana Field. The loss also gave the Yankees the series win over Tampa Bay winning 10 of the 19 match-ups between the two teams.
It began in the first inning off “opener” Jaime Schultz.
The Yankees have rookies, too
The likely AL Rookie of the Year, Miguel Andujar, crushed his 27th home run of the season, the three-run variety, to extend the New York lead to 4-0 in the first. Andujar leads all AL rookies in both HR and RBI this season. He is now two home runs shy of tying Joe DiMaggio (29) for 2nd-most by a rookie behind Aaron Judge (52).
Sabathia strikes back
C.C. Sabathia plunked Jake Bauers on the hand in the fourth inning. A pitch that didn’t at all seem intentional given the Yankees led 7-0 at the time.
In the top of the fifth, Andrew Kittredge would throw high and behind Yankees catcher, Austin Romine. The benches would be warned after some jawing by both dugouts.
Still leading 7-0 in the home fifth, Sabathia immediately hit Rays catcher, Jesus Sucre. He would then be ejected along with manager Aaron Boone. On his way to the bench, Sabathia would point to the Rays dugout and talk a little smack before disappearing into the clubhouse.
“It’s a bunch of people protecting teammates more than anything,” Kevin Cash said of the incident after the game. “Not a ton to say. Looks like there was some intent there but that’s not for me to decide.”
Stanton tees off
After walking his first two times to the plate, Giancarlo Stanton crushed two home runs in the next two at bats. It was his 32nd multi-home run game of his career and 4th in 2018. His second came back-to-back after Luke Voit hit one out to left field as part of a four-run sixth inning.
Cron eyeing 30
The lone run of the night for the Rays came in the seventh courtesy of a solo-HR by C.J. Cron to straight away center. It was his 29th of the season. If he can get to 30, it would be just the ninth time in franchise history a hitter has done so for the Rays. Evan Longoria (4) and Carlos Pena (3) are the only hitters to do it more than once.
Pham-tastic!
Tommy Pham has been on fire lately. Coming into today’s game he had reached base in 28 consecutive games. After striking out in his first three at-bats today, he finally drew a walk in the ninth to extend that streak to 29, the second-longest in team history.
Johnny Damon owns the record at 38 straight games reaching base back in 2011.
NEXT UP:
The Blue Jays come to town to wrap up the 2018 season with a three-game series. The Rays are just two wins away from their sixth 90-win season in franchise history.
