The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Tampa finishes sweep of N.Y.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Rookie Jake Bauers and the Tampa Bay Rays made it a lost weekend for the New York Yankees. An injury to Gary Sanchez turned the trip into an even bigger loss.
Bauers led off the 12th inning with a home run and Tampa Bay completed a three-game sweep of the Yankees with a 7-6 victory Sunday.
“It’s a crazy feeling,” Bauers said.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Sanchez hurt his right groin/hip abductor trying to beat out a double-play grounder in the 10th and “it’s probably going to be a DL situation.”
“What can I say?” Sanchez said through a translator. “That’s the way baseball is sometimes. Now I’m just hoping it’s not a long time.”
Sanchez will undergo an MRI exam Monday.
Giancarlo Stanton doubled twice and homered while going 5 for 5 for New York. The Yankees had been the only team in the majors that hadn’t lost three in a row this year this was the latest into any season they had gone without losing three straight since August 1954.
“Just a frustration weekend, but you just turn the page from it,” Boone said.
Bauers, who tripled earlier, homered on the first pitch from Chasen Shreve (2-2). Five previous New York relievers held Tampa Bay hitless for eight innings.
Brett Gardner opened the 12th with a bunt single that saw Rays reliever Jonny Venters strain his right hamstring and depart the game.
Venters hadn’t pitched in the majors since the 2012 NL wild-card game with Atlanta until joining Tampa Bay this season. The lefty had three Tommy John surgeries (2005, 2013, 2014) and another other major procedure in 2016.
Venters will be going on the disabled list
“Hopefully, it’s a mild strain,” Venters said. “It’s disappointing, but injuries are part of the game.”
Ryan Yarbrough (7-3) replaced Venters and worked out of a first-and-third jam by getting a twoout grounder from Austin Romine, who replaced Sanchez.
Stanton hit a solo homer in the eighth off Vidal Nuno that made it 6-all. He reached on an infield single in the 10th before Sanchez hurt himself.
Nuno allowed one run over four innings.
Yankees pinch hitter Clint Frazier lofted a towering fly in the ninth that struck a speaker hanging from an overhead catwalk and shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria, as allowed by the ground rules at Tropicana Field, caught the carom for an out in shallow left.
Hechavarria missed time earlier this season with bruise near his eye when a ball took a strange bounce on the turf after striking a catwalk.
“As the play was happening, once it hit up there, I thought about that last play,” Hechavarria said through a translator. “That’s not going to happen again.”
Tampa Bay tied it in the second on Hechavarria’s solo homer, and went up 6-3 when Carlos Gomez had an RBI single and Jesus Sucre drove in two with a double off Domingo German during the third.
It’s the second time — also the Chicago Cubs in June 2008 — that Tampa Bay has a swept a series of three or more games against a team that entered a series with the best record in the majors.
Didi Gregorius and Stanton had consecutive runscoring doubles in the fifth to make it 6-5. Miguel Andujar put the Yankees ahead 3-2 with a three-run homer in the second.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Yankees: RHP Masahiro Tanaka, on the 10-day disabled list since June 9 with strained left and right hamstrings, threw 26 pitches in his first bullpen session. He will get on the mound again Tuesday.