Empire Writes Back
Fansided

Masahiro Tanaka Dominates Tampa Bay Rays In New York Yankees Win

By Kenneth Teape

facebooktwitterreddit

0. 21. 9. 43. Final

New York Yankees Recap: Masahiro Tanaka Dominates In Win Over Tampa Bay Rays

The New York Yankees were able to secure their first series victory of the season by defeating the Tampa Bay Rays Saturday evening. It was a pitcher’s duel through five innings, when the Yankees bats finally awoke and Masahiro Tanaka continued twirling his dominance.

Tanaka has been a topic of discussion for months because of his elbow worries, but for one night he was able to put those doubts to rest, looking like he did at the start of last season.

Tonight, the Rays couldn’t touch Tanaka has he had everything working. He pitched seven scoreless innings, and had the Yankees not broke it open in the sixth and seventh innings, and his injury concerns, he could have gone the distance.

In his seven innings of work, Tanaka surrendered only two hits with no walks, a welcome sight after the two starts he struggled through to start the season. He was able to continue striking players out tonight as well, racking up eight on the night. No one could have predicted a night like this, as the first Rays’ batter of the game, David DeJesus, got on base with a single and it looked as if Tanaka would be in for a long night once again. But he sat down 15 straight before allowing a double to start the bottom of the sixth inning to Brian Souza.

By the time he had surrendered that double, the Yankees were well on their way to blowing this one open. In the top of the sixth inning, a Brian McCann tripled scored Brett Gardner and Alex Rodriguez for the first two runs of the game.

That would have been more than enough with how Tanaka worked, but the Yankees would pour it on in the seventh inning. Five of the first six batters in the inning were able to get on base, resulting in two runs, with the only out coming on a Gregorio Petit sac fly.

More from New York Yankees

A Mark Teixeira sac fly would follow, resulting in the third run of the inning. After McCann was hit by a pitch, Chris Young launched his third home run of the season, this one of the grand slam variety. Two more Yankees would walk after that, looking like they were poised to continue taking runs on, but Petit was retired to mercifully end the inning for the Rays.

In total, the Yankees had 12 batters go to bat, registering five hits to go with three walks and a hit batsman, resulting in seven runs.

The Yankees will hope they have some more runs in the tank for Sunday afternoon when they will be going for the sweep of the Rays. Michael Pineda will be taking the mound for the Yankees, and will opposed by Rays’ rookie Matt Andriese.

Next: Who is the best Yankee of all-time?

More from Empire Writes Back

Home/New York Yankees