Yankees lose to the Rays as a triple play is the turning point of the game

The New York Yankees were defeated by the Tampa Bay Rays by the score of 5-3 on Tuesday night. Bartolo Colon started and was much better then his previous two outings. He wasn’t great but he wasn’t bad at all. The bullpen gave up the lead, well actually Rafael Soriano gave up the lead. The rest of the bullpen did it’s job. The Yankees lineup was reshuffled to how it probably will be in the postseason and really didn’t have much of an impact. It is hard to judge the Yankees on these games, because they are just getting their work in, they really aren’t trying to win the games. The Yankees second season will begin on Friday and that is what their focus is on.
Colon pitched 5 1/3 innings giving up two runs on seven hits. He walked two and struck out three. Cory Wade pitched 2/3 of an inning giving up a hit, Soriano pitched one inning giving up a hit and three runs with two walks and a strikeout. Soriano got charged with a blown save, his third and the loss putting his record at 2-3 on the season. Dave Robertson faced two batters, retiring them both and striking out one and Mariano Rivera faced one batter and struck him out.

Eduardo Nunez had two hits, Robinson Cano had a walk and Alex Rodriguez had two walks. Mark Teixeira had two hits, Nick Swisher had a hit and an RBI and Jorge Posada had a walk. Russell Martin had a hit and an RBI and Brett Gardner had a hit and a walk. Teixeira and Swisher each had a double. Martin had a homerun. The Yankees were 1-5 with runners in scoring position and left six men on base. Gardner had a stolen base. Nunez and Colon each made an error. Colon had a pickoff.

In the second inning Ben Zobrist hit a two run homerun to give the Rays a 2-0 lead. In the third Martin hit a solo homerun to cut the lead in half. In the fifth inning Granderson hit into a double play and a run scored making it a 2-2 game. In the sixth Swisher had an RBI double and the Yankees lead was 3-2. In the seventh Matt Joyce hit a three run homerun to give the Rays a 5-3 lead and that was how the game would end.

The Yankees have lost the first two out of three in this three game series. The Yankees have nothing to play for and that is how they are playing. They aren’t going all out and their pitchers especially, in this game they wanted to get a bunch of their relievers work and in the first game and Wednesdays game they didn’t really have a starter. The Rays and Red Sox are tied for the wild card with one game to play. If they both win or both lose their will be a one game playoff in St. Petersburg to determine the wild card winner on Thursday afternoon at 4:00PM. The Rays have David Price pitching on Wednesday and the Red Sox have Jon Lester so I don’t know who would be pitching in a one game playoff. It makes the final day very interesting, and I am sure all baseball fans will be locked in on Wednesday night.