Yankees 4, Rays 3: Gleyber Torres carries New York to another victory

After narrowly losing last night’s game, the Yankees narrowly won tonight’s. The offense couldn’t figure out Blake Snell early, and he struck out multiple players swinging at breaking balls in the dirt. It looked like it would be a rough night at the plate. Luckily, the Yankees just needed two home runs to put the game out of reach. Thanks to a decent start from Domingo German, and three scoreless innings from the bullpen, the Yankees won the first game of this series 4-3.

The Rays wasted no time getting on the board tonight. Matt Duffy jumped on the very first pitch out of German’s hand and deposited the ball in the left field seats. With two outs and two on in the third inning, Wilson Ramos hit a line drive to left field. The ball bounced off of Giancarlo Stanton’s glove and Johnny Field scored, but Duffy was thrown out to end the top half of the inning. That gave the Rays a 2-0 lead.

It took the Yankees awhile to get anything going against Snell. He racked up eight strikeouts before his night was over, and even struck out the side in the third. Finally, in the fifth inning, Aaron Hicks hit a solo shot to right-center. Aaron Judge followed with a single, Gary Sanchez worked a walk, and Gleyber Torres gave the Yankees the lead by crushing his 13th home run of the season. That was all the offense had in them, and those four runs ended up being just enough.

Tampa Bay tacked on another run in the sixth after Jake Bauers worked a lead off walk and Joey Wendle hit an RBI single. All things considered, this was a successful outing for German. He ended the night with a career-high ten strikeouts, walked just two batters, and only gave up five hits. Chad Green and Dellin Betances pitched scoreless seventh and eighth innings, respectively. Aroldis Chapman picked up the save—his 19th of the season—without any issues.

The Yankees remain undefeated against the Rays this year.

If you don’t have plans, tomorrow’s game should be a good one. Jonathan Loaisiga will make his MLB debut tomorrow night, starting in Masahiro Tanaka’s spot. He’ll square off against our old friend Nathan Eovaldi on WPIX at 7:05 ET.