Game 1: The Yankees rolled into town, looking to take a sweep to keep any last-gasp division hopes alive even though there are two months left in the season. They sent out their ace, Gerrit Cole, and the Rays countered with theirs, Tyler Glasnow. And the game was everything it was billed to be and then some. Glasnow was overpowering in his 6 innings of work, going 6 5 1 1 4 12 with the only damage against him a 5th-inning solo homer from Gary Sanchez. But Cole was just as good, if not better, and he no-hit the Rays until the bottom of the 5th when Ji-Man Choi answered Sanchez's homer with one of his own to tie the game (#11). And 1-1 we went, with Pete Fairbanks and Diego Castillo turning in scoreless innings and Cole 2-hitting the Rays through 8, walking 1 and whiffing 7. Nick Anderson got the Yanks 1-2-3 in the 9th with a pair of whiffs and New York brought on Aroldis Chapman to pitch the 9th. Chapman got himself into trouble by walking Austin Meadows to lead off the inning, and Meadows stole second. After Yandy Diaz popped out, Brandon Lowe walked and after Kyle Higashioka's passed ball sent the runners to 2nd and 3rd, Randy Arozarena was intentionally walked. This brought up Choi, but instead of the lefty-on-lefty matchup, I brought in Mike Brosseau, who famously took Chapman deep to win last year's ALDS after being thrown at by him in the regular season, to pinch-hit. Brosseau didn't homer this time but he did get the ball in the air deep enough to CF to score Meadows with the winning run and the Trop went nuts. Anderson got credit for his 4th win of the season and the Rays have now opened up an almost unassailable 11-game lead in the AL East. Rays pitching struck out 19 Yankees on the day as the 3 relievers added 7 to Glasnow's 12 in their 3 innings of work.
MLB News: The Astros acquired free agent-to-be SP Eduardo Rodriguez from Boston for 3 players, including pitching prospects Nivaldo Rodriguez and Bryan Abreu. I had kicked the tires on Rodriguez but didn't think he was all that much better than McKay and McClanahan. The Angels acquired Jake Bauers from Cleveland for C Kurt Suzuki and a minor-leaguer.
Down on the farm: Luis Patino, who was up with us in April, has been on a tear at AA Montgomery. Over his last 4 starts he's gone 23 2/3 innings and allowed only 2 runs, walked 8 and whiffed 33. I can definitely see him back up later this season as a multi-inning reliever.
Game 2: This team has become ridiculous. Trailing 5-1 in the 5th and 6-3 going into the bottom of the 8th, the Rays erupted for 4 runs against Yankee reliever Chad Green to take an improbable 7-6 win and further tramp the dirt down on the grave of the Yankees, pushing them 12 games back in the division and taking their 9th straight win. Their 68-34 record matches last season's winning percentage of .667 but over a sample that's 42 games larger. Brendan McKay got the start and it was a tough assignment against the Yankees with all their right-handed power (Stanton, Judge, Torres, Voit, Sanchez) and it played out about as expected except for McKay issuing 3 walks, two of which scored on Yankee homers as Luke Voit got him for a 2-run shot in the first and then Torres had a 3-run blast in the 5th. He left with a rough 4.1 6 5 5 3 6 line of which at least the whiffs were impressive. Brian Moran got him out of the inning but put two men on to start the 6th and Chaz Roe allowed one of them to score. Rich Hill followed with 2 scoreless innings but got hurt
again (back tightness, moderate 5 days). Jameson Tallion allowed numerous runners (10 hits + a walk) but the only runs they managed off him in 7 innings were solo homers from Ji-Man (#12, his 3rd in 3 games), Yandy Diaz (#8) and Brandon Lowe (#28). Then came Green in the 8th and the Rays went to town. Ji-Man walked, Wander Franco doubled, Willy Adames brought Choi home with a sac fly, then Kevin Kiermaier tripled to score Franco and make it 6-5. Up stepped Mike Zunino. Although the Rays C has his typical sub-Mendoza .189 batting average, he's contributed with one big homer after another and today was no exception as he drilled a 2-run shot (#14) to amazingly put the Rays ahead. Nick Anderson then got a 1-2-3 9th with two whiffs for save #23 while Hill notched his 6th win.
We have a trade:
I can't believe it but I actually got a trade offer that I liked, and took. Dolis is a solid reliever who will help our depth (he'll probably take Brian Moran's place in the pen) and Gigliotti is a 4th OF at best as our real CF prospect is Josh Lowe. Plus we get Montgomery, who doesn't look like much but is better than nothing.
Game 3: The Rays completed the sweep of the Yankees with a 7-3 win, which combined with a Toronto triumph tonight has knocked New York into 3rd place and the Rays now have a 12 1/2 game division lead over the Jays after winning their 10th straight. Their magic # to clinch the division is down to 48, for those who keep track of these things. Austin Meadows was the hero today with a pair of homers, a solo shot in the 3rd to put them up 3-1 and then a game-clinching 3-run blast in the 8th after the Yankees had pulled within 4-3, giving him 24 for the season. Randy Arozarena kicked things off in the 1st with a 2-run shot off Jonathan Loaisiga (#19) and Ji-Man Choi had an RBI single in the 7th for the other runs. Ryan Yarbrough started and outside of a Giancarlo Stanton solo homer in the 2nd, gave up next to nothing, going 6.1 3 1 1 3 3 and improving to 9-7, 4.26. Pete Fairbanks gave up a 2-run homer to Luke Voit in the 8th but after Meadows' 2nd homer opened things up again, Andrew Kittredge pitched the 9th and got them 1-2-3.
Team record: 69-34. Next up: Boston is in town for the weekend.