[Art Deco]

Game 1: It's always an adventure at Yankee Stadium and typically if you're gonna win it's by outslugging them. The Rays managed that tonight in a 9-6 win that showed how hard it is to trust the secondary bullpen arms. Chris Paddack vs Gerrit Cole isn't what you'd figure as a 9-6 game but the Rays jumped on Cole in the 1st with a Wander HR as he continues his recent power binge, and added another in the 3rd on a Marsh double and Keibert RBI single. Aaron Judge equalized in the bottom of the 4th with a 2-run shot off Paddack but the Rays chased Cole in the 5th when he loaded the bases and then surrendered a grand slam to Alec Bohm. Giancarlo Stanton doubled in a run in the bottom of the frame to make it 6-3, and Paddack with his pitch count over 100 had to leave in the 6th in favor of Shane McClanahan. After Wander walked and stole second in the 7th, Devers drove him in but in the bottom of the inning McClanahan saw Gleyber Torres take him deep to make it 7-4. Then McClanahan put two on in the bottom of the 8th to bring the tying run to the plate but Nick Anderson immediately got him out of it with a Kolten Wong double play grounder. Rylan Bannon, played for a fatigued Vidal Brujan, ripped a 2-run HR in the 9th to make it a comfortable-seeming 9-4 so Austin Franklin started the ninth rather than Will Smith, and of course Franklin got into trouble, giving up a one-out 2-run HR to Stanton and then walking the next batter, so Smith had to come in after all and he struck out the final two batters to get save #16. Paddack got the win with a 5.1 7 3 3 2 3 line to go to 8-4 as the Rays take their 8th straight win. The Orioles won in Seattle so the lead is still 10 1/2 and over in the NL the Padres got 2 runs in the 8th to pull out a 4-3 win over Milwaukee to extend their winning streak to 17 games.

June 20: Signed IF/OF Wil Myers to a minor league contract; assigned him to AAA Durham.

Who says you can't go home again? Well that home is Durham, Myers was signed to give them some depth as the Durham roster was been thinned considerably with callups and injuries. I don't expect he'll see time with the big club.

Game 2: This one came a little easier for the Rays as they ended up winning 11-3, although 5 of those runs came in the 9th inning. Max Fried was in pretty good form considering the opponent and the site, and went a respectable 6.1 7 1 1 1 9 to get his 7th win of the season. It was actually scoreless after 3 innings before the Rays put up a 5-spot in the top of the 4th. Getting the ball rolling was Triston Casas, filling in for a tired Alec Bohm. Casas took advantage of the short Yankee Stadium RF porch to hit his 4th HR of the season to make it 2-0, and the Rays piled on from there with a 2-run single from Seth Beer capping the rally. The Yanks got one back against Fried in the bottom of the inning on 3 hits, but Rylan Bannon hit his 2nd HR in as many days to get that run back in the top of the 5th. Bannon had 3 hits on the night as he too was playing for a tired player, Wander Franco, with Brujan sliding over to SS. It's good to see him finally hitting as advertised after his 300/350/500 season in about 280 AB for KC last year. Fried came out with one gone in the 7th and Dany Jimenez got the call and got the next two Yankees to finish the inning as he got to pitch for the first time in a long time with the lead. Jimenez came out for the 8th and whiffed the first two he faced in that inning to give him Ks of 3 of the first 4 he faced, but then he served up back-to-back HRs to Aaron Hicks and Miguel Andujar and Nick Anderson had to finish the inning. The Rays then added the 5 in the 9th on a 2-run HR by Devers and a 3-run shot from Max Kepler and Aaron Ashby was taken out of mothballs and had a perfect 9th to end the game as the Rays made it 9 in a row. Baltimore keeps winning so the lead stays the same and San Diego made it 18 straight.

Game 3: It was getaway day at Yankee Stadium as the Rays are heading cross-country to play Oakland in a 4-game series starting tomorrow, with Noah Syndergaard returning to the city where he made his name, up against Yankee rookie Roansy Contreras making his major league debut. You might think this is a lead-in to how despite the pitching matchup the Yankees shocked the Rays, but that wasn't the case. Thor, obviously inspired by his return to the Big Apple, pitched a 5-hit shutout as the Rays swept the series with a 5-0 win. He walked 2 and whiffed 8 for his AL-leading 10th win despite some up and down performances this season. Contreras baffled the Rays for the first three innings, but the second and third times through the lineup were his undoing. Wander tripled to lead off the 4th and scored an Alec Bohm sac fly, Albert Almora Jr. doubled in a run and Franco drove him home in the 5th, and then Bohm and Seth Beer went back-to-back with HRs in the 6th. Almora, playing for the fatigued Brandon Marsh, had 3 more hits and is 8-14 with a HR and 7 RBI since coming up for Meadows, one of the reasons the team is on a 10-game winning streak despite being without their all-star LF. Bohm's HR was his 17th as he's heated up again. Baltimore finally lost so the lead grows to 11 1/2 and I'm just going to throw it out there that the magic # is 76, while San Diego got 2 runs in the bottom of the 8th to beat Milwaukee 2-1 and extend their winning streak to 19.

Team record: 54-21.