Rays maintain mastery over Yanks
Six Tampa pitchers combine to limit N.Y. to five hits; Judge returns
The Tampa Bay Rays keep finding ways to frustrate the New York Yankees.
Austin Meadows and Randy Arozarena homered off Domingo German, helping the Rays extend their mastery over their AL East rivals with a 4-0 victory on Saturday.
The Rays have won 10 of 12 regular-season games between the teams since the start of 2020. Tampa Bay also eliminated the Yankees from last year’s playoffs in a five-game series that went the distance.
Six Tampa Bay pitchers combined to limit the Yankees to five hits, with an injury-riddled bullpen delivering a strong performance after starter Chris Archer departed with a forearm injury that landed him on the 10-day injured list.
“Any time you shut out a team in major league baseball, it’s saying something,” manager Kevin Cash said. “When you do it in that fashion against that lineup, it’s really saying something.”
Meadows got things rolling for the Rays with a solo homer in the first inning, his third of the season. He had three hits in Tampa Bay’s 10-5 win over New York the previous day and has homered three times in eight career at-bats against German (0-2).
Arozarena, a rookie who keyed the Rays’ run to the World Series with a breakout postseason, hit a 420-foot solo shot in the third inning for a 4-0 lead. The ALCS MVP hit .377 with 10 homers and 14 RBIS in 20 postseason games last fall.
Andrew Kittredge (2-0) worked 1 ⅔ innings to get the win, replacing Archer when the starter exited with right lateral forearm tightness after allowing three hits and striking out four in 2 ⅓ innings.
Archer departed after yielding a one-out double to DJ Lemahieu with the Rays leading 3-0 in
the third inning.
The two-time All-star, making his first start at Tropicana Field since Tampa Bay traded him to Pittsburgh in July 2018, signed with the Rays as a free agent in February.
The right-hander missed the entire 2020 pandemic-shortened season after undergoing surgery to relieve symptoms of neurorgenic thoracic outlet syndrome.
Yankees slugger Aaron Judge returned to the lineup after missing two games due to soreness in his left side. He went 1 for 4 with two strikeouts. His fifthinning
single was New York’s final hit of the game.
“We just couldn’t muster anything with the opportunities we had. … Collectively, we have to be better as a group,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
German allowed four runs and eight hits in four innings, walking one and striking out five. After looking sharp in spring training, the right-hander has yielded four homers in seven innings over two starts this season.
After the game, he was optioned to the Yankees’ alternate training site.