The attacking Masahiro Tanaka recorded disappeared into the pleasant air above Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night, raising hopes that a line-up without Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and DJ LeMahieu could steal a win.
The Yankees followed through three runs in the seventh inning, and the bases were loaded with one out and Luke Voit, their hottest hitter who had homered in the fifth, on the plate.
As soon as the hope came up, a full-count slider from Diego Castillo started doing nothing but catching the zone with the ball on Voit’s shoulder to take the air out of the threat. And when Gio Urshela strutted three with a routine ground ball to the third, the threat was dead. Yes, the Yankees still had two bursts at the Rays bullpen, but they missed their biggest chance.
“I knew I was going to get sliders and he threw me someone who backed up and did nothing,” Voit said of the night’s biggest pitch. “I failed and it’s frustrating.” ‘
The Yankees did not score in the eighth or ninth and fell, 6-3, to a team that is 4-1 against them this year and moved to 1 ½ games back from the first place Yankees in the AL East.
All three Yankees runs came on a solo homer by Gary Sanchez in the fourth and a two-run blast by Voit in the fifth. Each homer was from Blake Snell, who improved to 2-0.
After keeping the Rays scoreless in the opening two, Tanaka (0-1) hit hard in the third when the Rays scored four runs, the biggest blow delivered by Brandon Lowe whose three-run homer gave the visitors a 4-0 kiss.
“I felt like he was looking for it a bit and it was just not his night,” Aaron Boone said of Tanaka, who gave up six runs (five rebounds) and eight hits in a-plus four-innings. ‘Mostly he can lie down on something when he needs to and last night he searched for all three [pitches]. ”
When Tanaka is out, he knows the reason is a mechanical error that he more often than not can correct between starts. However, there was no time to work out the unrest on Tuesday night.
‘I tried to make adjustments throughout the game, but I could not find it,’ ‘Tanaka said. “I do not have my command and control.” ‘
It did not take Tanaka long to know that he had been in a long evening over command and control.
“I knew right away there was something out there,” Tanaka said.
Tanaka collapsed, the seventh-inning error and the Yankees going 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position were the biggest reasons their winning streak of six games crashed, as well as their 10-0 start to the season in The Bronx.
However, there was one positive that jumped out of the rubble and that was the five shutout innings provided by Nick Nelson and Luis Cessa.
Other than that, however, it was not a good way to start a very large series that continues Wednesday night with the Yankees following right-hander Gerrit Cole of ace.
‘They have a good team, good pitching and defense and they can hit a little bit,’ ‘said Voit, who hit leadoff as a starter for the first time in his career. ‘It’s nice to have Gerrit on the mound [Wednesday]. We know he will dominate as he always does. It will be good to have our ace on the mound and hopefully get back on track. ‘ ‘
It was expected that the time would come for the Yankees to shake off without Judge, Stanton and LeMahieu. Coupling that with a rare bad outing by Tanaka, however, was too much to overcome.
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