[Art Deco]

April 23: Added P Blake Money to the active roster, optioned P Cole Patten to AAA Durham.

Money will start tomorrow night, bumping Anglin and Little back a day.

Game 1: The Rays were up against Daniel Tillo, one of the league's top pitchers the last few years, and managed to get the better of him in a 6-1 win that was much closer for much longer than the score would indicate. Matt Manning manned the mound for the Rays and he was wild today but used 3 double plays to get out of it. His 6.2 5 1 1 3 7 line looks pretty good but doesn't indicate he hit 3 batters as well. He still picked up the win, though, and is 4-1, 3.41. The star on offense was the forgotten man, Keston Hiura, who got off to a slow start only to see Triston Casas take over his job against righties, who constitute about 80-85% of opposing pitchers. With the lefty Tillo pitching, Hiura got a rare start and made the most of it, going 3-3 with a walk, 2 runs scored, a stolen base and an RBI. He drove in Keibert Ruiz with a single in the 2nd, and then singled, stole second and score on Vidal Brujan's infield single in the 5th. They finally got some breathing room in a 2-1 game in the 7th when Brandon Marsh's sac fly scored Hiura and a wild pitch scored another. Marsh and Wander Franco added RBI singles in the 8th to break it open. Steven Casey got a big final out in the 7th when it was still 2-1 and the Royals had runners on, he stayed for a 1-2-3 8th and then Hayden Johns pitched a scoreless 9th to close it out. The Yankees won so the tie remains atop the AL East.

Game 2: Blake Money made his Rays debut and the good news is he struck out 7 in 4 innings. The bad news of course is that he only went 4 innings and gave up 8 runs (7 earned) on 10 hits. The Royals jumped on him for 6 in the first two innings including homers from Bobby Witt Jr and Thairo Estrada as they went on to an 11-0 win. The offense did manage 11 hits without scoring as all of them were singles and twice they hit into double plays with the bases loaded, so it was just one of those days. Hayden Johns and Mike Bayley each pitched 2 shutout innings in relief and rather than use any more pitchers in an 8-0 game, Nick Gonzales pitched the 9th inning. It went about as expected with 3 runs allowed but he actually could have gotten out of the inning unscathed had Vidal Brujan not booted an easy double play ball. He even got a strikeout, freezing Coby Mayo with a called strike 3. The Yankees won so we slip back a game into second place.

Game 3: The Rays wasted a stellar outing from Mack Anglin and found themselves shut out for the second straight game in a 1-0 loss to the Royals. Anglin was brilliant, going 7 3 0 0 0 11 and gave way to Liam Hendriks in the 8th. After getting the first out Hendriks allowed singles to put runners and 1st and 3rd. With the lefty Khalil Lee due up, Jose Alvarado came in and promptly wild-pitched the man on 3rd home and that was the ballgame. Yordan Alvarez (someday he'll homer again) led off the 9th with a single, but Judson Fabian (still looking for his first HR of the year and terrible of late), Hunter Bishop and Triston Casas all whiffed to end the game and put an exclamation point on their offensive futility today. Unlike yesterday when they had the hits but couldn't score, today they only managed 6 and drew one walk. The only saving grace is that Cleveland beat the Yankees so no ground was lost.

Team record: 20-9. Next up: Cleveland comes to town for a 3-game set. Maybe they'll try scoring some runs.