Rays, Kluber Shut Down Yankees Again, win 2-1 to Inch Closer in AL East
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Corey Kluber is 36 years old and has pitched in a lot of big games. He knows what pennant races are all about.
Especially in September.
The Tampa Bay Rays turned to Kluber on Saturday in its hair-on-fire pursuit of the New York Yankees in the American League East division race. And he responded brilliantly, pitching seven scoreless innings and allowing just two hits in the Rays' 2-1 victory before a noisy crowd of 21,734 at Tropicana Field.
With the win, the Rays raised their record to 74-57, a season-high 17 games over .500, and are now without just four games behind the haughty Yankees, who have been in a free-fall for close to two months now. The Rays were once 15 1/2 games out of first, but they've close two-thirds of that gap, and have no intention of stopping now after winning five straight games.
"You marvel at what he's done,'' Rays manager Kevin Cash said of Kluber, who's a two-time Cy Young Award winner. "He's just had a lot of success against the Yankees lineup. They know him, he played there last year, and when he's executing like that, it's really tough. It was an extremely well-pitched game.
"We needed him (to pitch the seventh inning). To send him back out there will help us going forward too, giving the bullpen a little break. I marvel what he was in Cleveland. A lot of power, and electric stuff. Now, I marvel that he has late movement on his stuff and that he can pitch so well in the zone.''
"You marvel at what he's done. He's just had a lot of success against the Yankees lineup... When he's executing like that, it's really tough."
— Bally Sports Sun: Rays (@BallyRays) September 4, 2022
Kevin Cash talks about the outstanding performance from Corey Kluber.@RaysBaseball | #RaysUp pic.twitter.com/6wcjxYtpGc
The Rays opened this critical three-game series with a 9-0 whitewash on Friday night, a game so bad from the New York side that Yankees manager Aaron Boone called it "embarrassing.'' The Yankees, who lead the lead in runs scored, have been completely baffled by Rays pitching in this series.
Kluber gave them nothing other than a single in the first inning and another one in the sixth. Because of two Tampa Bay errors, he did have to work through some trouble, but did so without incident.
The Rays gave him a lead to work with in the third inning, and did it in an unconventional way — at least for the Rays. Catcher Francisco Mejia and center fielder Jose Siri led off the inning with singles, and then Taylor Walls moved them both up with a sacrifice bunt, a strategy that Tampa Bay often eschews.
Yandy Diaz then singled to right center, scoring both runs and giving the Rays a 2-0 lead. "With Yandy in a contact situation, we wouldn't want anyone else up there either,'' Cash said. "Wallsy had a really big game, and that bunt was on his own. It was impressive that he did that.''
It wasn't until the ninth inning that the Yankees finally scored a run, with likely MVP winner Aaron Judge hitting his 52nd home run of the season, a solo shot off of closer Jason Adam. But Adam settled down from there and got three straight outs to end the game, striking out Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson to seal the deal for his eighth save of the season.
"I fell behind to Judge and threw a bad changeup and he barreled it,'' Adam said. "So after that, the trick was to get ahead, throw strike one. I did that.
"We want to keep it rolling now. That's the name of the game. You want to be playing your best baseball this time of year, and I feel like we're doing that.
"I obviously fell behind to Judge... Threw a bad changeup and he barreled it. After that, the trick was to get ahead, throw strike one; if you're ahead 0-1 the ball is in your court."
— Bally Sports Sun: Rays (@BallyRays) September 4, 2022
Jason Adam talks about how he was able to bounce back after letting up the homer to Judge. pic.twitter.com/wdCewbhuwU
The Yankees are a mess right now. Judge's homer ended a 21-inning scoreless streak.
“Well, we’re No. 1 in the [American] league in scoring, as amazing as that is,’’ Boone said of the disappearing offense after the most recent defeat.
Even more amazing is that the Yankees had three hits or fewer 13 times this season, the most times that has happened to them since 1914.
That's more than a century ago.
The Rays are now 7-8 against the Yankees this season, but can tie it up on Sunday in the series finale. This was supposed to have been Shane McClanahan's turn in the rotation, but he is on the 15-day injured list with a minor shoulder issue. Instead, the Rays will turn to Shawn Armstrong to start the game, with left-hander Ryan Yarbrough likely to get a bulk of the innings.
Yarbrough is just 1-8 on the season, but that win came against the Yankees three weeks ago in a 4-0 road win. He pitched four scoreless innings at New York, allowing just three hits. Frankie Montas, who has struggled for New York since coming over from Oakland in a trade last month, gets the ball for the Yankees. He's 0-2 with a 7.01 ERA in his five starts with the Yankees, and he is just 4-11 on the year.
These two teams will meet for the last time next weekend in New York, with games set for next Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
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Tom Brew is the publisher of Inside The Rays, and has been with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation network for three years. He is an award-winning writer and editor who has spent most of his four-decade career at the Tampa Bay Times, Indianapolis Star and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He has written four books.