The hard thing about writing about baseball is finding something to say after the 46th loss of the season, in the midst of a 7-3 run and with an 8 game lead on the closest challenger for a playoff spot. A 100 win team, a great team, will lose 62 games; after tonight's loss, the Yankees are on pace to lose 63 games this season.
On another night, we might have called this a gem. CC threw strikes and dared the Rays to hit it.
Unfortunately, the Tampa Bay Rays hit 'em. 5 Rays hit solo homers, which accounted for all five runs against Sabathia in his 8 innings of work. Sabathia only threw 106 pitches. 4 of the 5 home runs were hit with no outs in the inning (Kotchman and Shopach went back to back in the 3rd, Johnson went deep in the 5th and Longoria homered on the first pitch of the 8th.
David Price was David Price. He allowed 8 base runners in 8 innings of work, holding the Yankees to a single run (on an Andruw Jones 2 out double).
The Yankees got beat by a good team, a team that would be the class of their division if they played anywhere but the AL East. What is there to say about the game? On another night the Yankee offense might have bailed CC out, but at least CC went 8 to keep the bullpen fresh; it's a shame to waste a start from your ace, but nobody wins every game; Russell Martin should keep playing every day even if his back is hurting him so much that he would go on the DL had Jesus Montero not run over Joe Girardi's cat during Spring Training, denying Montero the chance to ever be called up to play for the Yankees.
Boston and Seattle are just getting started, so we'll see soon whether or not the Yanks will lose ground in the race for the AL East. The Angels have already beaten Toronto to crawl to 8 losses behind the Yankees in the Wild Card chase, tied with Tampa Bay.