It has to be hard to beat the Yankees in a place named George M. Steinbrenner Field. I don’t make the rules. This is their house, heck most of Tampa can feel like it is, so it should be no surprise the Rays didn’t walk away with this one, particularly with how this season has gone.
It took Drew Rasmussen five pitches to surrender the lead, as Trent Grisham belted a solo homerun to start this mercifully cut short series at just two games, continuing the pelting the Bronx Bombers gave the team last
night when nine homeruns rained following a rain delay. Austin Wells followed suit in the fifth.
The Rays bats must have still been sopping wet; it took until the seventh inning for Chandler Simpson to break up a perfect game that NY starter Cam Schlittler had going, dropping the bat on a curve that stayed in the zone and rolling it up the middle. Simpson stole his 35th base and the Rays loaded the bases but without damage in the inning as Hunter Feduccia struck out.
The eighth saw two more homers, another by Grisham, but then the other by the Rays — featuring the first career blast from Bob Seymour!
3-1 Yankees, and you would think they had the win in the bag, but Feduccia had his shot at redemption in the ninth plating Brandon Lowe and Junior Caminero to send the game into extras!
Kevin Cash called upon Pete Fairbanks to keep the Rays in this one, but there would be no such luck as Giancarlo Stanton took a full count fastball to the wheelhouse easily over the fence, and Austin Wells put the game even further out of reach with a 423-foot moonshot that might have cleared The Stein and landed on Dale Mabry.
Bobby picked up an RBI in the tenth, but Devin Williams sat down three straight Rays to wrap things up.
Game Notes
- HSK was scratched in this one, not good!
- Jose Caballero picked up his 40th steal of the season… for the other team, of course.
