Yankees 10, Rays 4: Raining homers

A long rain delay, a starter going on short rest, a team that always seems to annoy the Yankees — today’s game could have been quite the slog. But the Yankees’ offense absolutely crushed the Rays’ Luis Patiño, led by two home runs from Gleyber Torres. New York had 10 runs by the end of the second inning, so the rest of the game was mostly an exercise in seeing if rain would end things early while observing steady work from the bullpen.

In what was perhaps a bit of gamesmanship by manager Aaron Boone, starter Domingo Germán only pitched one inning, essentially acting as an opener. He allowed a leadoff walk, but no damage in his appearance on three days’ rest.

It didn’t come on a barrage of singles, but the Yankees did stake a decent first-inning lead for the second day in a row. Aaron Judge led things off with a bloop single, then Patiño walked Giancarlo Stanton. Torres, who has been looking better of late, then gave the Yankees a quick three-run lead with a home run to left center.

Lucas Luetge emerged for the second inning as the second pitcher of the bullpen day. He allowed two soft singles and a force out, giving the Rays one run. Greg Weissert was brought on and got the final out.

Patiño was clearly struggling with his command, but as the broadcast pointed out, the Rays didn’t have the luxury of pulling him too early. Unlike the Yankees, the Rays play tomorrow and have a doubleheader on Tuesday against the Blue Jays. In the second, that hurt them.

Patiño walked Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Kyle Higashioka to start the inning, then allowed a smashed single to Marwin González to load the bases for Judge with no outs. A slam to bring him closer to 62 home runs would have been nice, but he hit a sacrifice fly to bring in the fourth run — still good.

That brought up Stanton, who flicked the ball to right for a three-run home run. If he can start doing that again, that’ll be huge.

How about going back-to-back too? Torres got his second home run in as many innings, fouling off a lot of pitches before pulling one into the stands in left.

Patiño walked Josh Donaldson before finally being pulled by Kevin Cash. He was replaced by Calvin Faucher, who dished up Oswaldo Cabrera’s first big league home run!

Two innings in, 10 runs were on the board, and that was all she wrote. The Yankees thankfully made the rest of the proceedings almost entirely stress-free. Wandy Peralta easily pitched through the third and the fourth, as well as the first out of the fifth. He gave way to Lou Trivino, who completed the inning with an assist from a jumping catch by IKF to snare a line drive.

The Rays did strike for two more runs in the top of the sixth. Trivino allowed a leadoff single to Randy Arozarena before being replaced by Ron Marinaccio. After Arozarena advanced to second on a David Peralta groundout, a Christian Bethancourt double down the left field line and a Taylor Walls single brought in two. Marinaccio did strike out Jonathan Aranda and Jose Siri to end the inning.

Ryan Yarbrough was a lifesaver for the Rays, throwing five innings of relief with only two baserunners allowed. Meanwhile, Clarke Schmidt, back in his long relief role, was called on for the seventh and eighth. He allowed only one hit, striking out four.

Clay Holmes, in need of work, came out for the ninth. He immediately walked Aranda, then struck out Siri. After a wild pitch allowed Aranda to advance to second, he scored on a single from Ji-Man Choi to make it 10-4. But Holmes followed up by freezing Isaac Paredes with good pitch on a corner for a strikeout looking, and Brandon Lowe lined out to wrap up the game.

The Yankees are off tomorrow, then begin a two-game series in Boston on Tuesday night at 7:10pm ET. The Yankees haven’t announced who will start, but Nick Pivetta will go for the Sox.

Box Score