Nestor Cortes pitches into the ninth as Yankees beat Rays 7-2
Nestor Cortes took a three-hit shutout into the ninth inning, Matt Carpenter sparked a go-ahead, threerun rally in his Yankees debut and New York beat the Tampa Bay Rays 7-2 Thursday night in the first meeting of the AL East rivals this season.
Cortes (4-1) won his third straight start, striking out five and walking one in eight-plus innings. The 27-yearold left-hander lowered his ERA to 1.70, retiring 14 in a row during one stretch. He threw 77 strikes among a career-high 109 pitches.
Cortes has allowed three earned runs or fewer in 18 consecutive starts, two shy of the team record set by Russ Ford in 1910.
Wandy Peralta relieved after Wander Franco’s leadoff single in the ninth and allowed Manuel Margot’s run-scoring infield hit and Isaac Paredes RBI grounder before finishing a six-hitter.
New York, dealing with a string of injuries, signed Carpenter to a $1 million, one-year deal before the game and inserted him into the starting lineup when Aaron Hicks was scratched because of right hamstring tightness. The 36-year-old Carpenter, released last week from Texas’ minor league system, went 0 for 2 and also walked.
Aaron Judge had pair of RBIs to raise his total to 36.
The Yankees opened a 5 1/2-game lead over the Rays by winning the opener of a four-game series, the first of 10 games between the teams in a 28-day span. New York won its third straight following a season-worst three-game losing streak and improved the major leagues’ best record to 32-13, matching 1994 for the Yankees’ second-best 45-game start behind 35-10 in 1998.
Ryan Yarbrough (0-1) held the Yankees hitless through five innings before hitting Carpenter leading off the sixth. Marwin Gonzalez singled, and Carpenter scored the go-ahead run on Judge’s single. After Anthony Rizzo flied out, Ryan Thompson relieved, Judge stole second and Gleyber Torres flied out.
Miguel Andújar hit a hard grounder off the glove of shortstop Tyler Walls, who recovered and made a one-hop throw to that bounced off the glove of first baseman Harold Ramírez.