Masahiro Tanaka

The New York Yankees had double trouble last night at the Stadium in the Bronx. That double trouble was pitching. Masahiro Tanaka didn’t have it last night, and the Tampa Bay Rays Blake Snell did. The Yankees again played a game without their “A” lineup. Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, and DJ LaMahieu were all still on the IL. The “B” squad led off by Luke Voit, just couldn’t solve Blake Snell in the early going.

Neither team did anything off of each other in the first two innings, but that all changed in the third when the Yankees Masahiro Tanaka gave up four runs to the Rays. At that point, the game was lost for the Yankees. To start the inning Kevin Kiermaier tripled, Perez singles driving in Kiermaier. Tanaka then gives up his third hit in a row to Meadows, and in his fourth straight hit in a row, Brandon Lowe sent one over the dead center wall, for the Rays 4-0 lead.

At the bottom of the third inning, Snell again shut down the Yankees. At the top of the fourth Tanaka allowed another two Rays runners. Tanaka then threw a pitch low but right down the middle and catcher Sanchez committed a passed ball scoring another Ray’s run, for the 5-0 lead.  In the bottom of the frame, Sanchez was first up, and in partial atonement, homered, but it was too late, however, the Yankees did get on the scoreboard.

In a puzzling decision, manager Aaron Boone sent Tanaka back out to pitch, already behind 5-1.  Boone paid for the decision, when the first batter he faced, Austin Meadows, greeted Tanaka with a home run into centerfield for the 6-1 Rays lead. That home run did knock Tanaka out of the game. Nick Nelson finished the inning not allowing another run.

It looked like things might change for the New York Yankees, when with one on base Luke Voit hit his third homer in two nights, making it 6-3 Rays. At the bottom of the seventh inning, Diego Castillo loaded up the bases with Yankees. It looked like the Yankees could finally take the lead in the game, but Castillo struck out Voit for the second out, and got Gio Urshela to ground out, allowing him to get out of trouble, leaving the bases loaded with Yankees.

Ray’s relievers Anderson and Roe combined for the last two scoreless innings and that was the game.  Final score the Rays 6 and the Yankees 3. Masahiro Tanaka took the loss, Snell the win, and Roe the save for the Rays.

So, the Yankees lose their first game in the last eight games and their first game of the season at Yankee Stadium.  On Wednesday night the Rays will face Yankee ace, Gerrit Cole, as he tries for his fifth win of the season.  The Yankees have won all of his starts.  The Yankees will face Tyler Glasnow. The Yankees, in their only win during the last Rays series, beat Glasnow, who didn’t make into the third inning in the loss.

The New York Yankees faced off against the Tampa Bay Rays in the first game for three-game series on Tuesday evening. After sweeping the Red Sox in four games, the Yankees hosted the Rays without their three best players. Proceeding without Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, and DJ LeMahieu, the offense simply wasn’t strong enough to battle against a dominant Tampa pitching corps.

This was the first loss of the season at home for the Bombers, with their overall record dropping to 16-7.

The Yanks will feature Gerrit Cole on the mound in game two on Wednesday, providing the men in pinstripes a bit more pitching support.

Final Score: 6-3

Here’s the good news and bad news for the New York Yankees following the loss:

GOOD NEWS:

There wasn’t much good news in the Yankees’ loss to Tampa. The offense was stale, and starting pitcher Masahiro Tanaka faltered miserably in his fourth start of the 2020 season.

Luke Voit, who lead off for the first time in his career, hit a two-run home run in the fifth inning to pull the Yankees within three. Prior to Voit going deep, Gary Sanchez pulled an inside fastball to left field 419 feet. He put the Yankees on the board after two passed balls that allowed the Rays to tack on some runs.

Nick Nelson pitched 3.0 innings allowing just one hit, striking out two batters. He looks phenomenal in relief, earning himself more playing time in the near future.

BAD NEWS:

The bad news boils down to starting pitching for the Yankees. Tanaka pitched 4.0 innings, allowing eight hits, five earned runs, and two homers. He increased his ERA from sub -3.00 to 4.60. The Yankees have already been struggling with their starting pitching, only depending on Cole to produce quality outings. Tanaka has been decent so far this year, but being thrashed against by Tampa is a massive wake up call for the Yankees.

In fact, it might force them to test the trade market for starting pitching, as the probability of making a World Series appearance with the current starting unit is low.

Injury wise, LeMahieu is still a ways away from returning to the lineup, and Giancarlo Stanton is at least three weeks out. On the bright side, slugger Aaron Judge enjoyed batting practice prior to Tuesday’s match up, showing he is ready to return.

Last night the New York Yankees swept the Boston Red Sox for the second time this season, at Yankee Stadium.  The Yankees are now the best team in baseball again. They are 16-6.  The only teams in all of baseball that comes close to that, are the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A’s.  But, tonight the Yankees face the Tampa Bay Rays, the team that caused them to lose their only series of the season.

This time, instead of being on the cardboard-like base paths and Astroturf of Tropicana Field in Tampa, it will be at the Stadium in the Bronx. The Yankees are coming off winning 7 games in a row, and the Rays will be coming off a day off.  The Rays did win their last outing playing the Toronto Blue Jays.  The Rays are also number 2 in the East Division behind the Yankees.

Tonight, the game will not be threatened by poor weather.  It should be a beautiful night for baseball.  The game-time temperature will be about 77 degrees, as the sun sets over the Stadium.  There is no chance of rain. The game will be televised on the YES Network, FoxSportsSun, and nationally on ESPN.

Masahiro Tanaka will take the ball for the New York Yankees. In his last appearance against the Rays eleven days ago, he pitched effectively going five innings, not allowing a run while striking out five, but nevertheless, the Yankees lost the game.  In his last outing against the Atlanta Braves, he went four innings, giving up two runs and five hits in the Yankee 6-3 win.  So far, on the season, he is 0-0 with an ERA of 2.31.  One has to consider that Tanaka is still gaining strength after taking a comebacker to the head in July. In his last outing, he relied mainly on his slider, not his four-seam fastball.

The Yankees will face the Tampa Bay Ray’s ace, Blake Snell. With Snell on the mound the last time the Yankees face him, the Rays won the game. Snell is 1-0 with an ERA of 2.08. Last year was one of his poorer years, going 6-8 with an ERA over 4.  Snell did not win a game against the Yankees last year.  In one game, he only lasts 1/3 of an inning, in a Yankee 12-1 win over the Rays. He just pitched his best game of the season against the Red Sox the day before they faced the Yankees.  Snell’s biggest problem this season is that he has never gone more than 5 innings in any game, mostly 2 or 3 innings, heavily relying on the Rays bullpen.

Wednesday night’s game will be started by Yankee ace Gerrit Cole, against a yet to be named Ray’s pitcher.  James Paxton will start the afternoon game on Thursday. The Yankees’ next series will be with the crosstown New York Mets at Citi Field, ending the Yankees longest homestand of the season.

Last night the New York Yankees created a record by winning a game that allowed them 26 straight series without a loss.  The Yankees rebounded from a series against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field when they went 1-3 in the series.  Last night they righted the ship winning over the Atlanta Braves in a 9-6 victory.

The New York Yankees started out this short season at a torrid rate, winning the first eight of nine games. But since then and before last night’s win, they went 2-5. Although their powerful lineup has performed well with 27 home runs in just 17 games, their starting pitching with the exception of Gerrit Cole has been suspect.

On an encouraging note James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka, and Jordan Montgomery have improved in their most recent outings. The Yankees seem to have lost faith in J.A. Happ after two poor outings.  They have taken the opportunity of a day off on Thursday to skip his place in the rotation.

Tonight as the Yankees look for the sweep of the Braves, they will send out Mashiro Tanaka to get that job done.  Tanaka had the only win against the Rays in the last series.  He pitched five innings of one-hit ball with no walks and no runs crossing the plate.  Late in summer camp, Tanaka was hit on the head by a comebacker from fellow teammate Giancarlo Stanton.  He has fully recovered from that injury.  The Yankees tonight will hope that Tanaka can continue where he left off in the Rays game.  In this third start, the Yankees would like to see him go into the sixth or seventh inning.

When the Yankees take the field tonight at the Stadium they will face Atlanta Braves pitcher right-hander Huascar Ynoa (pronounced Hass-car Yeah-no).  This will be Ynoa’s second start as an opener. His season debut came on Sunday as part of a doubleheader against the Phillies and the 22-year-old righty looked good in a limited stint, surrendering one run on a hit and a walk across 2 ¹⁄₃ innings. Ynoa would not be the Brave’s choice to start tonight’s game. The Braves like the Boston Red Sox are in sorry shape for pitching at the start of this short season. Mike Soroka is hurt, Cole Hamels still hasn’t pitched off a mound, and Felix Hernandez has opted out of the season.

After tonight’s game, the Yankees will have a day off tomorrow before facing the Boston Red Sox in a four-game series starting Friday and ending Monday at the Stadium. Gerrit Cole will start that series, with James Paxton likely to follow.

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.

The New York Yankees, now the third-best team in baseball have flown to Tampa, Florida to meet up with the Tampa Bay Rays for a four-game set, which includes a Saturday doubleheader.

The Yankees started out the season hot, winning a series against the World Champion Washington Nationals, then sweeping the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Red Sox.  However, for the first time in the season, the Yankees hit a wall losing two games against the Philadelphia Phillies for a split of that series.

Tonight at 6:40 pm eastern they will play a game at Tropicana Field in Tampa against the Rays who are presently third in the East with a 5-7 record.  The Yankees are 9-3.  In the first game of the set, they will face Black Snell.  You may remember him from his many complaints about playing in a coronavirus season, saying it just wasn’t worth it. Yet, here he is facing the Yankees tonight.

Snell the once-powerful ace of the Rays, in 2018 he had a 21-5 dominant season.  However, last year he went 6-8 with an inflated 4.29 ERA.  This is Snell’s third start of the season.  In his second start, he gave up three runs in three innings.  So far he is 0-0 with an ERA of 5.40. Although Snell is a premium pitcher he has never had a handle on the Yankees.  His record against the Yankees in 16 starts in his career, is 3-6 with an ERA of 4.41. Snell will have to pitch carefully to Mike Tauchman and DJ LeMahieu, who both have his number.

The Yankees will put out Masahiro Tanaka against Snell.  Tanaka two weeks into summer camp got hit in the head by a comebacker from fellow teammate Giancarlo Stanton.  He was put under concession protocol, delaying his first start.  Tanaka allowed two runs (one earned) on four hits and one walk over 2.2 innings during last Saturday’s 5-2 win over Boston. He struck out three and did not factor into the decision.

Tanaka is still building strength, having pitched 51 pitches in his first outing.  The Yankees hope he can go 65-70 pitches tonight, and allow the Yankees to bounce back from their loss last night against the Phillies.  None of the Rays have hit well off Tanaka at any point in his career. Tanaka has pitched complete-game shutouts of the Rays in 2018 and 2019. Last year Tanaka was 3-1 against the Rays. It is unknown if the “Tank” will continue to wear the protective shield he wore in his hat last Saturday.

New York Yankee ace Gerrit Cole will start the first game of a day-night doubleheader at Tropicana Field on Saturday. The second game may be a bullpen game, with James Paxton taking the ball for the Yankees on Sunday.