And with Masahiro Tanaka on the mound, he helped get the Yankees back to their winning ways in a 4-1 win at Tropicana Field in Tampa, Florida.
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The Rays have lost five of their last six games, so it seems the Yankees are catching them at the right time. This allowed the speedy Gardner to get all the way to third with only one out.
The Rays will be wheeling out lefty Matt Moore for Saturday’s game. Carlos Beltran, moving from designated hitter to right field in order to accommodate Rodriguez’s return, also tacked on his 11th dinger of the campaign.
Yangervis Solarte hit two home runs and Matt Kemp and Derek Norris also homered to help San Diego left-hander Christian Friedrich to his first victory in nearly four years in the Padres’ win over Arizona at Chase Field.
“Matt had a great outing, and the rest of our starters are capable of doing that”, 3B Evan Longoria said.
“What we will not do is invest significant amounts of money into a new ballpark if we’re not confident we’re going to get better results”, Auld said. On that night, he launched a mammoth home run while playing for Double-A Trenton and punctuated it with a grand bat flip.
“If you look at my first 50 or 60 at-bats, there were some mechanical things going on with my swing that I wasn’t happy about”, Rodriguez said. That is more reason for added optimism after both went a combined 0-for-8 Thursday afternoon in a series finale loss to Toronto in the Bronx. Their four hits were their fewest since also collecting four on May 9 at Seattle. It is a part of this Yankees lineup this season, that being the inconsistency and one never knows, or can contemplate what two of the oldest guys on the roster will give you on any given day.
The Yankees (23-24) have won seven of nine with six of those coming on the road. He drove in his fourth run of the game in the fourth inning on an RBI single. It was his first home run since coming off the disabled list and was the 695th of his career.
“It’s always good to produce and drive the ball like that”, Rodriguez said of his estimated 440-foot shot.
Beltran has resumed being the regular right fielder since Rodriguez has returned to his designated hitter role, a topic that has remained a popular pre-game discussion. In other words, the time off did A-Rod justice after the slow start which had the average and production well below his career numbers. Longoria’s homer was his ninth on the year, and 30th against the Yankees in his career.
Curtis Granderson hit a home run leading off the bottom of the ninth inning Friday night as the New York Mets beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-5, at Citi Field.
Said Girardi: “This team was built when we started this year for Alex to DH and Carlos to play right”. “Alex was swinging the bat really well before he got hurt and I think it’s way too quick to abandon what we were seeing”.
“Archer, I thought, pitched up in the zone really effectively with his fastball”, NY manager Joe Girardi said. They did, however, have an AL-best eight players with at least five home runs.
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Girardi may rather just bench Rodriguez to prevent the aging Beltran from having to play right field, but he may not have that choice as Rodriguez is receiving $21 million this season.
