
Last night in St. Petersburg, the New York Yankees played their first game of a four-game set with the Tampa Bay Rays. The game pitted Blake Snell against the Yankees Masahiro Tanaka. The game ended in a heartbreaking loss for the Yankees as well as Tanaka.
Tanaka pitched one of the best games of the season by any pitcher for the Yankees, he went five innings of one-hit scoreless ball. Tanaka had full command of his pitches. Tanaka looked like the ace he once was. Just a few weeks earlier he was hit in the head by a comebacker in summer camp delivered by fellow teammate Giancarlo Stanton. He had an MRI that came back negative but was put on concussion protocol. Last night proved he has no negative effects from the incident.
In relief of Tanaka, Luis Cessa came in and pitched two innings of scoreless ball, allowing one hit while striking out two Rays. The Rays pitching held the Yankees scoreless through the sixth inning in what was a pitching duel up to that point, but the Yankees did have their opportunities. At the top of the seventh inning, Luke Voit hit a long one to shallow right field, but the Rays Austin Meadows made the play of the game when he slid across the foul line for the catch.
Also at the top of the seventh with Hicks, Stanton, and Urshela loading the bases, Gary Sanchez came up in the biggest moment of the game with two outs, Sanchez on three fastballs from Rays pitcher Nick Anderson, struck out leaving the bases loaded with Yankees.
At the top of the eighth Mike Tauchman continued his hitting ways by doubling with no outs. DJ LeMahieu ground out to the shortstop. Tauchman took off for third but shortstop Willy Adames threw him out sliding into third, in a serious running mistake.
In what was a scoreless game everything went south in the bottom of the eighth, when Adam Ottavino came on in relief of Luis Cessa, he walked two and then threw a wild pitch that reached the backstop, putting two Rays in scoring position. The next batter Perez hit a sac fly, scoring Choi for the Rays 1-0 win.
Previous to that allowed run by Ottavino, the trio of Chad Green, Adam Ottavino, and Zack Britton pitched seventeen scoreless innings. The Mike Tauchman running mistake and Ottavinos wild pitch were costly to the Yankees.
The winning pitcher was Chaz Roe while Adam Ottavino took the loss. For his second time, sadly Masahiro Tanaka was uninvolved in the decision. Tanaka has the lowest ERA on any Yankee starting pitcher at 1.17.
Saturday will feature a day-night doubleheader at Tropicana Field. Game one at 2:10 pm will be started by New York Yankee pitching ace Gerrit Cole who has won all three of his starts. He will face the Rays Tyler Glasnow. The pitchers and time of the second game have not been released at the time of this writing.