The Yankees fail to sweep the Tampa Bay Rays
By Gary W. Marchese Jr.
Bronx, NY (June 7, 2012)-The New York Yankees were defeated by the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday night. The final score was 7-3 and the game took place at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, NY. CC Sabathia started for the Yankees and had a strange outing. He struck out a lot of batters but did give up a lot of runs, the damage was done in the span of nine batters though. Russell Martin hit a homerun and the Yankees failed again with runners in scoring position and especially bases loaded. David Price pitched well for the Rays and their bullpen pitched pretty well. There were three Rays with a couple of hits each.
Sabathia pitched seven innings giving up seven hits and five runs with three of them being earned. He had a walk and 12 strikeouts. Cody Eppley pitched 2/3 of an inning giving up a hit and Clay Rapada pitched 2/3 of an inning giving up a walk and a run. Cory Wade pitched 2/3 of an inning giving up two hits and a run with a walk. Sabathia suffered his third loss of the season. Price earned his eighth win of the season pitching five innings giving up three hits and a run with four walks and eight strikeouts. The Rays used five pitchers to pitch four innings and they gave up three hits and two runs with one walk and five strikeouts.
Derek Jeter drew two walks, Mark Teixeira drew a walk, and Alex Rodriguez had a hit and drew a walk. Robinson Cano had a hit, Nick Swisher had a hit, and Andruw Jones drew a walk. Raul Ibanez had a hit and an RBI, Chris Stewart had a hit, and an RBI and Martin had a hit and an RBI. Martin hit a homerun, the Yankees were 1-10 with runners in scoring position, and they left 10 men on base. Rodriguez and Swisher each made an error but the Yankees only have 22 on the year. The 22 errors are the least amount in all of baseball.
Elliott Johnson had a hit and an RBI, Ben Zobrist had a hit, an RBI and drew a walk, and Desmond Jennings had a hit. B.J. Upton had two hits and an RBI, Jose Lobaton had two hits, an RBI and drew a walk, and Matt Joyce had a hit and drew a walk. Drew Sutton had two hits and two RBI. Upton, Jennings, and Johnson each had a double. Sutton had two doubles, the Rays were 4-11 with runners in scoring position, and they left six men on base. Johnson committed an error.
Lobaton had an RBI single in the second to give the Rays a 1-0 lead. The Yankees tied the game in the bottom of the inning on an RBI groundout by Stewart. Zobrist hit an RBI single and Upton hit a sacrifice fly to make it 3-1 in the third inning. Sutton hit a two run double in the fourth and it was 5-1 Rays. In the eighth Ibanez hit an RBI single to cut the lead to 5-2. The Rays would add to the lead in the ninth inning. Sutton and Johnson had RBI doubles to make it a 7-2 game. Martin hit a solo homerun in the bottom of the ninth to complete the scoring. The final score was 7-3 Rays.
The Yankees won two out of three in this series. The Yankees record dropped to 31-25 and the Rays to 32-25. The Yankees will begin a three game series at home against their cross-town rivals the New York Mets.
