New York Yankees 2, Tampa Bay Rays 8
NEW YORK — Josh Lowe drove in five runs, an MLB career best, while Drew Rasmussen shut out the Yankees over 21 innings. The Tampa Bay Rays continued their dominance of the New York Yankees on Thursday night with an 8-2 victory.
In the sixth inning, Lowe gave his club a 4-0 lead with a three-run double against Ron Marinaccio. After that, in the eighth inning, he homered off Ryan Weber for two runs, increasing his team’s advantage to three. The 435-foot distance covered by Lowe’s eighth home run of the year was well beyond the Yankees’ bullpen in right-center.
With the victory, Tampa Bay improved to 3-1 on the season versus New York and took the opening game of the four-game set. The Rays are nine games ahead of the New York Yankees in the AL East and have the best record in the majors (30-9).
Rasmussen (4-2) allowed only two hits over seven scoreless innings. He allowed no walks while striking out seven batters, including Aaron Judge three times.
Jake Diekman was signed by the Rays this week after being released by the Chicago White Sox. In his first inning with the Rays, he threw an eighth inning with no hits. Gleyber Torres hit a two-run single with two outs left in the ninth, and Javy Guerra finished with a four-hitter.
Tampa Bay has scored the most runs (239) and given up the fewest (118) in the major leagues.
Rays shortstop Wander Franco was taken out of the game in the middle of the fifth inning because the right side of his neck was tight and in pain.
In the fifth inning, Domingo Germán (2-3) fell behind when first baseman Anthony Rizzo dropped a grounder by Lowe, resulting in an error, and Yandy Daz followed with a two-out, RBI double.
After going 1 for 20 with runners in scoring position and losing two of three at Baltimore, the Rays were 0 for 4 with RISP before their No. 8 batter, Lowe, hit a double off the base of the right-center wall.
In 5 2/3 innings, Germán gave up two runs, one of which was earned, and three hits.
After scoring 28 runs in three games against a bad Oakland team and winning all three, the Yankees don’t score any runs behind Germán for the second straight start.
New York’s Jake Bauers had two hits, but no one got past first base in the first eight innings.
UP NEXT
Last week, RHP Gerrit Cole lost a six-run lead at Tampa Bay and will start Friday against LHP Josh Fleming or an opener.
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That offense is terrible when German them till 5th inning the Yanks should be scoring runs that could change out come in game Tampa put in new pitcher never know. We should fire that hitting coach fire Boone to ignite those Yankees hire new trainers hire new pitching coach . Cashman needs to be evaluated again bad bad deals over and over again. Wow! Adding bad pitchers. Who afraid to pitch for the Yankees. Staying Healthy is always a problem woth Yankees and they accept that Stanton cant stay healthy . Sorry im so straight up but we really need to learn from mistakes.