Power trip
YANKS LIGHT UP RAYS AFTER LIGHTS GO OUT
ST. PETERSBURG — The Yankees lost their ace, starting center fielder, and their set-up man in spring training. Their 2018 Rookie of the Year candidate went down in the first weekend, the same time as their $325-million slugger. Their best remaining pitcher went down last week and the face of the franchise and slugger has been out for two weeks without any sign that he is nearing a return.
Forty games into the season and the Yankees have been through more than most teams will face this entire season. So a 43-minute power outage in the top of the ninth inning on Sunday? No big deal.
The Yankees came out of the Tropicana Field power failure and pounded the Rays for four runs to finish off a 7-1 victory and clinch their first series against Tampa Bay this season.
“They throw everything at us this season,” DJ LeMahieu said with a laugh, “We just seem to keep going on with everything.
The Yankees (24-16) bounced back after Saturday night’s loss to take the series from the division-leading Rays (24-15). After dropping to a season low 5.5 games behind in the race for the American League East on April 18, they have cut that lead to a half-game leaving Tampa. They have won three straight series and six of their last seven.
Thairo Estrada, who had his at-bat interrupted by the power failure, came back to provide his own. He finished off his interrupted at bat with a home run, his second big-league homer. “I was sitting in the dugout for a couple minutes and was thinking about the upcoming at-bat, went to the cage and warmed up and got ready for the at-bat,” said Estrada, admitting he’d never been through anything like that before.
Gio Urshela doubled in two more runs and Brett Gardner sacrificed another as the Yankees
put the finishing touches on a battle in which they chased reigning American League Cy Young winner Blake Snell in the sixth.
“More guys just continue to step up,” Aaron Boone said. “I’m really proud of that effort. It’s not easy for us right now. We have to grind and scratch for everything.”
After retiring the first nine Yankees he faced, striking out seven, Snell was forced to work in the fourth, the second time through the lineup. LeMahieu singled to lead off after an eight-pitch battle and Luke Voit worked an eight-pitch walk. Snell needed 30 pitches to get out of the inning and he paid for it in the fifth.
Austin Romine came through with a two-out double and scored on Mike Tauchman’s double. LeMahieu drove in Tauchman with a single to right. Voit, who worked a walk in the eighth, scored on a Ryne Stanek wild pitch.
Masahiro Tanaka, who has lost his last two starts, may not have been as overpowering as Snell — who struck out 12 — but the Yankees’ 30-year-old veteran was more effective. He held the Rays to a run on five hits over seven innings. He struck out seven and did not walk a batter. He did that all on 73 pitches. Tanaka retired 12 straight from the second before giving up a one-out, sixth-inning home run to Austin Meadows. He outlasted Snell with efficiency, including a nine-pitch fourth inning and a seven-pitch fifth. He topped that off with a four-pitch seventh.
“Obviously he’s one of the best pitchers in the league right now, so you want to match him,” Tanaka said of Snell. “We did a pretty good job of that today.”
The Yankees have proven they can do a pretty good job of handling whatever is thrown at them.
Sunday it was an ace and then a power outage.
The lights flickered and went out at 3:47 p.m. and did not return until 4:23 p.m. The first pitch Pruitt threw after the delay came at 4:30 p.m. The Rays issued a statement that the issue was due to a main switch failure outside the park and that they rerouted the power as quickly as they could.
LeMahieu, who had never played at Tropicana Field before, laughed off the latest Yankee hurdle.
“Well, now we can check that one off the list,” he said.
Tropicana Field goes dark in 9th inning Sunday, but after 43-minute delay, Yankees storm back for four more runs in 7-1 romp over Rays.