There was a moment where the Yankees’ hopes of turning their deficit around in one series burned a little brighter on Tuesday, as Ben Rice launched a three-run home run to give them a one-run lead in the third inning. Unfortunately, an inning later those hopes were dashed when the Rays scored four runs and took a lead they wouldn’t surrender. Now they’re playing to take the series overall and walk away with a shortened deficit, but before they can get back to that we’ve got to go over what went down
around the league while New York was busy battling in the Trop.
Toronto Blue Jays (43-49) 9, San Francisco Giants (38-53) 3
Credit where credit is due: after getting demolished on Monday by the Giants the Jays responded and smacked the Giants right back. The second inning saw them scoring first with a Jonatan Clase three-run homer, and after San Fran scratched one run back they jumped right back into the batter’s box in the third and scored five more runs. The first three Jays all singled scoring one, a groundout moved the runners over before another single from Sean Keys scored two, two more singles brought one more home, and then a sacrifice fly finally varied up the scoring to round out the inning.
Spencer Miles looked like he was going to let the Giants back into the game despite the significant lead, giving them a bases-loaded with nobody out setup in the bottom of the third. Rafael Devers brought in their second run of the game, but he did so via a double play that wound up killing all momentum in the frame, and Miles escaped by getting a groundout in the next at-bat. Miles only lasted four innings and saw plenty of traffic on the basepaths with seven hits, but despite the fact that he only struck out one batter he managed to induce enough soft contact to work around the jams he created. Patrick Corbin entered for his second relief appearance of the year and just the third of his career outside of his rookie season and gave them 2.1 innings of one-run ball before the traditional relievers entered and closed the door on any more antics, easily securing this one.
Chicago White Sox (47-43) 1, Boston Red Sox (41-48) 8
Welcome to the Roundup Chicago. With the Rays playing the Yankees this week and the White Sox holding first place in the Central we figured now would be a good time to give them a trial run on our coverage, though they sure didn’t give a good impression in this game. Boston jumped ahead 3-0 on a pair of homers from Andruw Monasterio and Ceddanne Rafaela in the second inning, tacked on another in the fourth with a successful safety squeeze bunt, and then poured it on late with four runs in the ninth as RBI doubles from Willson Contreras and Romy Gonzalez combined with an RBI single from Jarren Duran led the way. Payton Tolle delivered six shutout innings on the other end for the BoSox, and Danny Coulombe was the only one to stumble out of the bullpen putting the first three batters he faced aboard leading to Chicago’s only run in the seventh.
Cleveland Guardians (47-45) 1, Minnesota Twins (45-47) 3
Shades of the AL Central Rock Fight are emerging as the Twins pull within three games of first place following a narrow win over Cleveland. Taj Bradley was masterful, pitching seven innings and allowing just the one run on three hits and no walks with 10 strikeouts. The lone bit of damage came via a Rhys Hoskins solo shot in the second that briefly gave the Guardians the lead, but the Twins jumped to steal it right back in the bottom half. An error gave them a free baserunner right off the bat, and that quickly spiraled into runners at second and third with one out. The error proved costly by allowing Minnesota to lift a sacrifice fly to tie the game and a Brooks Lee single put them on top for good. Kody Clemens gave them some insurance with an RBI triple in the seventh, but they were cruising by that point.
Seattle Mariners (47-45) 5, Miami Marlins (50-42) 6 (10 innings)
Nobody had a better June than Miami, and they’re riding that hot streak into July with a four-game winning streak after surviving a wild one against Seattle. The Marlins got a great start, going ahead 4-0 by the fourth inning as Owen Caissie hit a solo shot, Jakob Marsee singled home another, Kyle Stowers lifted a sacrifice fly, and a wild pitch tacked on one more.
After looking lifeless through those four innings though, Seattle rallied against Max Meyer in the fifth. Cal Raleigh led off with a double and scored two at-bats later on a sacrifice fly, and Cole Young punched one out to right field to cut the deficit in half. The sixth and seventh were quiet as the bullpen entered the game on both sides, but the eighth saw the Mariners pull through. A walk and hit-by-pitch put runners on with no outs immediately and Raleigh doubled one of them in, Josh Naylor singled the other one across to tie the game, and a wild pitch once again tilted things to put Seattle up 5-4.
Miami had an immediate answer, with pinch-hitter Heriberto Hernández leading off with a blast to tie the game back up. The ninth inning was a wash, and we were off to extras where Seattle moved the Manfred Man over to third but couldn’t get a fly ball deep enough to score him. Miami just needed one hit to walk it off and they got it when Marsee turned on a middle-middle cutter dropping it onto the grass in right field.
