Home Sweet Home: Rays throttle Yankees
Posted: Mon May 12 10:26 PM
St. Petersburg, FL (Sports Network) - Matt Garza threw seven shutout innings and the Rays extended their franchise-record home winning streak to 10 games with a 7-1 victory over the New York Yankees.
Jonny Gomes had two hits with an RBI and scored three times for Tampa Bay, which has won five in a row overall and now sits a half-game behind Boston for first place in the AL East, this after the Red Sox lost, 7-3, at Minnesota on Monday.
The Rays (22-16), six games over .500 for the first time in franchise history, also got three hits and two RBI from Dioner Navarro to take the opener of this four-game series. Jason Bartlett added a two-run triple for Tampa Bay, which won for the 14th time in its last 19 contests.
"Winning and success is contagious in the game of baseball," Gomes said. "I think it's going to start with our starting pitching. It's a whole new ball game when you think, if we score 3-4 runs we're going to win."
Garza (2-1) allowed five hits, walked one and fanned three, being removed after throwing 108 pitches in his longest outing of the season.
"The game-plan was to attack," Garza said. "We went right after them. A lot of fastballs and made them hit into outs. Keep attacking and that's what we did."
Gary Glover, who had been on the disabled list since April 26 with right shoulder tendinitis, was activated before the game and threw the eighth inning. Trever Miller pitched a perfect ninth.
Andy Pettitte (3-4) was pounded for eight hits and five runs over four innings to suffer a rare loss against the Rays. The lefty fell to 14-4 lifetime versus Tampa Bay, having had his seven-game Tropicana Field winning streak broken. It was his first road loss versus the Rays since September 16, 1998.
Alberto Gonzalez had two of the six hits for the Yankees, losers in four of their last six games.
"Bottom line, we didn't hit tonight," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "This is a team that if you get ahead of them they can't be as aggressive. If you get a lead on them sometimes you can shut a little bit of that down."
Gomes singled to center with two outs in the second, stole a base and then scored on Navarro's bloop base hit up the middle.
The Rays then put up a four-spot in the fourth to extend the lead to 5-0. Evan Longoria led off with a double and scored on a Gomes base hit to left. Gomes went to second on a bunt by Navarro and stole third before Eric Hinske walked. Bartlett then tripled to the gap in left-center field, and Akinori Iwamura's line base hit to right plated the fifth run.
"It seemed like my ball started elevating a little bit, just getting the ball up and they hit it," Pettitte said. "The big blow was obviously Bartlett's triple."
Navarro singled in Longoria in the fifth and it became 7-0 in the seventh when Gomes came home on a Hinske groundout.
Jose Molina doubled to right off Glover leading off the eighth and later scored on a Johnny Damon groundout. Game Notes
Iwamura has a 10-game hitting streak...Pettitte has 167 wins as a Yankee, one shy of tying Bob Shawkey (168) for fifth place on the club's all-time list...Yankee relievers had not allowed a run in their previous 15 frames until Chris Britton surrendered Navarro's RBI single in the fifth...The Yankees are 4-3 against the Rays this year. They had won the previous four meetings. This was the seventh of 18 games between the clubs.