“We’ve been playing tough teams for a long time, and the focus is to win series and we’ve done a pretty good job of that”.
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It was the right-hander’s first major league outing since he started for the Yankees at Tampa Bay on May 14 previous year. Asked about Tim Tebow signing with the New York Mets, Yankees manager Joe Girardi said: “I’d be shocked if he’s not rusty, but the Mets thought enough of him to sign him, so I’m curious”.
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NY was ahead 3-0 before Morrison and Souza hit consecutive home runs in the fourth, the first into the luxury suites below the third deck in right, the second off the left-field foul pole.
Catcher Bobby Wilson moved wide as reliever Enny Romero lobbed in his first pitch at 52 miles per hour, but the ball drifted close to the plate.
“I think I got a little bit to go as far as not trying to overthink things”, Souza said. Tampa Bay mustered six hits with Bobby Wilson’s 6th homer accounting for the scoring.Matt Andriese toes the rubber against the Yankees for the second time this season.
Given a 7-2 lead, Yankees starter Michael Pineda lasted just 4 2/3 innings. Alertly, Sanchez socked it to the warning track in deep center field for a sacrifice fly.
“Basically three of the umpires felt that it was not a balk, Mike himself included, but when another umpire calls a balk he has to kind of announce it”, Cash said.
Richard (2-3) was sharp as he scattered six hits, walked two and had eight strikeouts. Nolan Ryan is the only AL pitcher to ever lead the league in losses and strikeouts, doing it in 1976 with the Angels. Masahiro Tanaka struck out 10 in 7 1/3 outstanding innings for his sixth straight win while Jacoby Ellsbury and rookie Gary Sanchez homered off Chris Archer. After hitting a solo homer to right-centre in the second, he crushed a ball 430 feet off the glass sports bar beyond centre field in the sixth for his 15th homer.
The Yankees are 58-33 in games where they hit one or more home runs. “You wonder why one guy sees another guy so well”.
“When you face Archer, you know it’s going to be hard to score”, Tanaka said through his interpreter. Girardi said: “If you’re risking injury and maybe your team’s chances of winning a World Series it becomes really hard”.
“I’m sure if we looked at the numbers from this year, and if we looked at the quality of contact and not just a traditional batting average, give us a much better depiction of how he’s been against me recently”.
Whitley was pitching with the Yankees against the Rays at the Trop when hurt, then was claimed on waivers by the Rays in November while rehabbing and made his return pitching for the Rays against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium.
“I didn’t know how many more grand slams I had left in me, ” he said. Miller was back at shortstop for the first time since Thursday, when he was hit by a pitch on the right elbow. However, New York has won 56% (39-31) of its games when taking a late lead.
The first-place Dodgers arrive in The Bronx on Monday for three games, and other than a series at Tampa Bay next week, all of the Yankees’ games will be against teams now in contention.
The Rays are 6-2 in their last eight game threes of a series, and 4-10 in their last 14 Saturday games.
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The Yankees hand the ball to rookie Luis Cessa for just his 5th career start and first versus the Rays.
