The Yankees went to a formula that has already worked a few times as an "emergency" measure: Start Chad Green, let him go 1 or 2 innings, and then send out Nestor Cortes, and then see what happens.
This time, it didn't work as well: Green threw 31 pitches in the 1st inning, but got out of it without allowing a run. Cortes started the 2nd, and got into the 5th, allowing a run on 2 hits and 3 walks. Not happy with his control, Aaron Boone took him out, and replaced him with Luis Cessa, who pitched into the 8th, allowing no runs on 2 hits and a walk.
Still, it was 1-0 Rays going into the bottom of the 5th. The Rays having just 1 run at that point was good. The Yankees having none was not. So Luke Voit did something about it, blasting a game-tying home run 419 feet into Monument Park. To paraphrase Aaron Boone's tirade with umpire Brennan Miller in the doubleheader's opener, he was a freaking savage in that batter's box.
The 6th inning was the key. Against Charlie Morton, who famously beat the Yankees for the Houston Astros in Game 7 of the 2017 American League Championship Series, Austin Romine led off with a double. Brett Gardner's groundout got him to 3rd. Morton may have been running out of gas, or he may have been unnerved. He might have split up, or he might have capsized, he might have broke up and took water... Wait, that's Gordon Lightfoot's song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
Well, something happened to Morton, because after the groundout, he walked Aaron Judge and Edwin Encarnacion. Cliche Alert: Walks can kill you. And then, with Didi Gregorius up, he committed a balk, and that sent Romine home with the go-ahead run. Things continued to fall apart for the Rays: Gregorius singled to center, where Kevin Kiermayer made a bad throw back to the infield, allowing both Judge and Encarnacion to score, and Gregorius to reach 2nd. Voit hit a liner to 1st that was caught, but Gleyber Torres reached on an infield single. Gio Urshela drew a walk to load the bases.
Rays manager Kevin Cash had seen enough, and he pulled Morton for Andrew Kittredge. It didn't work: He walked Mike Tauchman, to force home another run.
Cessa pitched perhaps his best game as a Yankee, and Adam Ottavino got the last 4 outs. Yankees 5, Rays 1. WP: Cessa (1-1). No save. LP: Morton (11-3).
That's 3 out of 4 against the Montreal Bay Devil Expo Rays. they fall to 8 games behind us in the AL East, 10 in the loss column. The Boston Red Sox won last night, so they remain 10 back, 11 in the loss column. The Yankees' Magic Number to eliminate the Rays is 56, and that's also their number to eliminate the Red Sox, due to having played different numbers of games: Yankees 95, Red Sox 97, Rays 99.
Tonight, the Yankees start a 3-game home weekend series with the Colorado Rockies. J.A. Happ is scheduled to start against Kyle Freeland.
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