After a walk-off home run by Jonathan Aranda on Saturday to beat the New York Yankees 8-6 in dramatic fashion, the Tampa Bay Rays were looking to even up the series at Steinbrenner Field Sunday afternoon.
The Rays sent Ryan Pepiot to the mound for his fifth start of the season, and left-hander Max Fried started for the Yankees.
Pepiot has struggled in his last couple of starts, going 1-2 with a 4.91 ERA on the season. Meanwhile, Fried has been the Yankees’ best pitcher this season, going 3-0 with a 1.88 ERA.
It did not start well for the Rays. Trent Grisham took Ryan Pepiot deep to lead off the game, his sixth home run of the season, giving the Yankees a 1-0 lead.
By the time Pepiot left the game, he had given up three runs, despite striking out seven Yankee batters. Pepiot is now 1-3 on the season after the less.
Pepiot missed with a couple of pitches to the Yankee leadoff hitter Trent Grisham, before putting a fastball in the middle of the plate which Grisham hit long and far for a leadoff home run. “I think the tell is out that I throw a lot of fastballs,” Pepiot said. “If I’m behind in the count and I don’t get it to the top of the zone, It’s not going to be as effective.”
The Rays had only two base runners through the first four innings, but they came on zero hits. Both Junior Caminero and Christopher Morel reached on two errors by third baseman Oswaldo Cabrera.
Cody Bellinger hit his second home run of the season to lead off the sixth to put the Yankees up 3-0.
It was another frustrating afternoon for the Rays offense, as they could never get anything going against the lefty Max Fried. Rookie speedster Chandler Simpson beat out a grounder to third for Tampa Bay’s only hit of the game through the first seven innings. It was initially ruled an error on third basemen Cabrera, but Simpson was awarded a hit after an official review, ending Fried’s no-hitter.
In the eighth, Jake Mangum singled to start the inning, Yandy Diaz walked, but Yankees reliever Fernando Cruz got Caminero to fly out to third to squash any threat the Rays had going.
Manager Kevin Cash talked about the Rays lack of offense in his post game press conference. “Everybody is kind of racking their brains on the days that we’re not hitting. Is there something that we can be doing better? I’d like to think that we’re better than a team that doesn’t consistently find ways to manufacture runs.”
Cash added, “At the end of the day, we’ve got to play better baseball. We had 13 games here at home. We did not take advantage of playing very clean. We were not consistent in really any aspect of our game. And we’ve got to turn it around.”
Fried worked seven and two third innings of two-hit ball, walking two and striking out two. The Rays had runners on base in multiple innings thanks to three Yankee errors.
Ryan Pepiot worked six innings for the Rays, walking one and striking out six, giving up three earned runs.
Austin Wells homered in the eighth to give the Yankees their final run, a solo shot and his fourth home run of the season to put the Yankees up 4-0, which would be the final score.
The Rays wrapped up a 13 game homestand and did not have the results they were looking for, ending the home stand with a 4-9 record.
Again, the Rays had problems getting runners on base to score, as they left six runners on base in total. The Rays are now 9-13 on the season and have lost five of their last seven. The Rays will now head west for a six-game road trip, which will take them to Arizona and San Diego next week.