The Yankees were bound to lose a game to the Rays eventually and it happened for the first time this season in a 13-inning one-run Wednesday matinee in the Bronx. New York starter Michael Pineda nearly provided his club with a quality start as he went five and 2/3 innings while allowing two earned runs on six hits and no walks. While Pineda left the game trailing 2-1, it wasn’t for long as Chris Young hit his fifth home run of the year to tie the game in the bottom of the sixth. The Yankees bullpen continued to dominant as Justin Wilson, David Carpenter, Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller, and Chris Martin combined to retire the first 14 Rays hitters faced.
Chasen Shreve wasn’t included in the list above, but he’s been a pleasant surprise out of the pen so far, which made you feel for the guy when he had to take the loss on what was objectively a pretty lame ground ball single by James Loney.
Top WPA Play (.367):
Key Moment: As I mentioned up top, Pineda came close to recording a quality start in this one, but early on it looked like it might be one of those days where he could dominant into the late innings. Then he got into some trouble in the fourth inning with two outs, which resulted in the Rays scoring two runs on Kevin Kiermaier’s triple and running up Pineda’s pitch count.
Bottom WPA Play (-.021): It was a tough afternoon for the Yankees offense, which of course scored just a pair of runs, but also had only 10 base runners in 13 innings and struck out a whopping 16 times. Perhaps no one had a worse day at the plate than Alex Rodriguez, who went 0-for-6 for the first time in his career and struck out four times. He was also responsible for the lowest WPA play of the game when he hit into a double play to end the game and his -.423 was the worst WPA in this game by a wide margin.
Up Next: The Yankees have an off day on Thursday and begin a weekend series with the Red Sox in Boston on Friday. Enjoy the weekend because this is the last Yankees recap we’ll have until Monday.
Photo Credit: Adam Hunger/USA Today Sports