The New York Yankees will face their nemesis, the Tampa Bay Rays again tonight at 7:05 pm, at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees this season have met up with the Rays eight times, but have only won one game off them, and it was at Tropicana Field. They have lost four straight games against the Rays at Yankee Stadium, including last night’s game that was pitched by Yankee ace Gerrit Cole.
The Yankees need to right the ship with a win tonight. The Yankees have slipped out of first place during the last two weeks, and are now 4.5 games behind the division-leading Rays. This series is really important for the Yankees, for if they don’t win this series, with just over three weeks left to the season, it will be near impossible to regain the division.
The weather tonight should not be an issue for the game. The game-time temperature will be in the low ’70s and will be played under partly sunny skies. The game will be telecast on the YES Network and Fox Sports Sun.
In that effort, the New York Yankees will send out Masahiro Tanaka to get a win. Tanaka is 0-1 with a 3.48 ERA. Tanaka was hit in the head in summer camp and does not seem to have fully recovered from it. He has never gone more than 5 innings in any game, nor has he thrown more than 71 pitches. He has faced the Rays twice this season and the Yankees have lost both of his outings. Tanaka, in his last game against the Atlanta Braves, Tanaka was excellent, going five scoreless innings, while giving up just three hits. But at 66 pitches he ran out of gas and had to be removed from the game.
The Yankees will face the Rays, Trevor Richards, that is 0-0 with an ERA of 5.14. Richards has been in six games, two of them starts. Has not pitched more the 4.1 innings on the season, for a total of 22 innings. His last start was last week against the Baltimore Orioles, he allowed two unearned runs in four and a third innings. He has given up five earned runs in his last eleven innings of work. The Rays will most likely rely heavily on their bullpen tonight. Luke Voit, Brett Gardner, and Mike Tauchman have been very successful off Richards.
Wednesday night will be the series finale against the Rays. The Yankee’s second most successful pitcher Jordan Montgomery will face the Rays’, Charlie Morton. On Friday the Yankees will have another doubleheader, this one against the Orioles at Camden Yards. It will be the Yankees fifth doubleheader of the season.