Some monthly honors from the league office:
Game 1: The Rays took it on the chin today as the Yankees scored 5 times in the 8th inning to beat them 7-2. They had taken a 2-0 lead on a 2-run Joe Barker triple in the 3rd but couldn't get much else going and the Yankees finally got to Jon Hayes in the 6th with a pair of runs, the second scoring on a Ricky Widmar error as Hayes had to leave at 109 pitches with a 5.2 7 2 1 1 6 line. Jordan Diaz got him out of that and pitched a scoreless 7th, but Corbin Martin had all kinds of trouble in the 8th. He probably deserved a better fate as two infield singles loaded the bases with two out, but he gave up a clean 2-run single to Victor Robles to make it 4-2. Evan Godwin then came in to face the lefty Tyree Reed, and once again Godwin served up a homer which made it 7-2. He's allowed homers in four of his last five appearances after having a great 2-month start to the season and right now he can't be trusted.
Game 2: The Yankees' two best players hit big homers, and the Rays went down to defeat again 6-3 despite outhitting New York 10-6. A Connor Kirkley error with 2 out in the 1st inning allowed Ivan Vega to reach, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr took Jack Leiter deep to make it 2-0. Leiter gave up nothing after that through 5 and the Rays took a 3-2 lead in the 6th. But in the bottom of the inning the Yankees got two on with two out and Vega, leading the AL in WAR, hit one to dead center to make it 5-3 Yankees and that was that. Leiter's more than doubled his HR yield this year from 0.8/9 to 1.7/9 and it hurt him tonight despite pitching well, ending up 6 3 5 3 1 7. Mike Mooney pitched the 7th and Rodolfo Rivas was called on in the 8th and this time finally gave up a run on 3 hits. As mentioned the Rays had 10 hits but Yankee pitching did not issue a walk. Bobby Witt Jr's RBI triple gave the Rays that 3-2 lead after a fielder's choice RBI from Nate Clark and a Victor de Jesus RBI single. Joe Barker went 2-4 to raise his average to .338.
Game 3: The Rays withstood 5 homers from the Yankees to take a 7-6 win in 10 innings, but man it was ugly. And Marc Wagner's start was ugly in that he allowed 4 homers, making it 10 yielded in his last 3 starts which is not what we had in mind with the big trade as he went 6 6 5 5 1 6. Amazingly he still would have picked up the win had Jasseel De La Cruz not given up a leadoff homer to Miguel Sano in the bottom of the 9th, but instead JDLC vultured the win (his 5th) when Joe Barker hit his 2nd homer of the game in the 10th inning off Yankee closer Mike Tudor. Barker had earlier hit a 3-run shot in the 7th to help turn a 5-2 Yankee lead into a 6-5 Rays lead. The two homers give him 18 in only 153 at-bats and he's slugging a cool .784. Also hitting HR #18 today was Jasson Dominguez against his old team with Dane Ayers contributing an RBI double and Nate Clark an RBI single. Clark was supposed to have the day off, but came in after Victor de Jesus was drilled in the head by an Eric Peterson pitch. de Jesus suffered a concussion and will miss 6 weeks as he's had trouble staying on the field since we acquired him from St. Louis last year. On the mound after Wagner left, Jordan Diaz and Jose Alvarado had scoreless innings before JDLC blew it. Mike Mooney pitched the 10th and ended up with his 2nd save of the year, although he made things interesting by putting two men on before whiffing Sano to end the game.
Team record: 66-21. Next up: We head to the Motor City to celebrate Independence Day with the first of four games. Once again Detroit is atop the AL Central and having a big year for them is our buddy Spencer Torkelson, finally healthy and getting to play every day, hitting 291/360/534 with 19 HR and 53 RBI. At the rate our pitchers are giving up homers lately, he'll probably get 3 or 4 in the series.
MLB Note: Blake Money seems to be on the same rotation day as Wagner, and today he was hit hard as well (5 runs in 5 innings) and ended up getting suspended for triggering a brawl by throwing at Detroit's Levi Usher. Money was suspended 8 games so he and Wagner won't be pitching on the same day for a while.