Leading Off: Tampa Bay Rays
Gerrit Cole dominated the Rays in his last start against them (AP).
The Yankees are going through another existential crisis over their lack of offense and subpar pitching performances after a weekend sweep in Detroit, so what better time to welcome the top two teams in the American League East to the Bronx for a weeklong gauntlet? The Rays are first up for their fourth matchup with the Yankees this year. If the Yankees can’t perform adequately this series, they could be absolutely buried in the division by Friday. Excited yet? Here’s a Gerrit Cole versus the Rays strikeout reel to get you in a good state of mind before we dive in.
2021 Rays So Far
The Rays are, once again, outperforming expectations. Tampa has literally lost one game since the last time they played the Yankees, and that was only by one run to the Royals. The Rays are red hot right now and they’ve surged into first place in the American League East with a 34-20 record. They recently had a 12 game winning streak, fueled by their usual stellar pitching and timely hitting. The Yankees have played Tampa in three separate series this year, so fans are well aware of just what these Rays are capable of. However, we’ll run through some numbers to give everyone a refresher, for better or worse.
The Tampa offense is a typical 2021 offense - low batting averages but high capability of scoring via home runs and walks to get guys on base. Tampa is third in the league in runs and first in walks, but only tenth in average. Their lineup has four standout hitters - Austin Meadows, Randy Arozarena, Mike Zunino and Joey Wendle, all of whom have an OPS that is above .750. Yandy Diaz is also an offensive threat with his high OBP and Ji Man Choi is back from the IL to pop a few home runs off of Gerrit Cole, probably. Much like the Blue Jays, it seems that this whole lineup is made of Yankee Killers, guys who just play well whenever they face New York. It doesn’t matter who they are - the Rays will plug them in and they’ll do well. Argh.
The pitching staff is anchored by Tyler Glasnow, who is having a Cy Young level season as the newly anointed Rays ace. Supporting him are Rich Hill, Shane McClanahan and Michael Wacha, with Ryan Yarborough often serving as the bulk man behind an opener. Although the Yankees have a better pitching staff thus far, the Rays are right behind them - they rank third in the league in ERA and second in strikeouts. Even the Tampa bullpen, which has been ravaged by injuries, has performed admirably this year. Say what you will about the Rays financial state - they can identify talent like no other team.
Bullpen Breakdown
As I mentioned, the Tampa bullpen has lost most of their key players from last year, but they still have a collection of guys that can lock down most games. Their closer, Diego Castillo, has pitched to a 3.20 ERA this year, and he’s supported by Jeffery Springs, Ryan Thompson, Hunter Strickland and Andrew Kittredge. Not exactly household names, but they’ve gotten the job done. The Rays employed an opener on Sunday in their win over the Phillies, so most of their top relievers will not be rested before today’s matchup against the Yankees, if that’s any consolation. The Yankees will bring a fresh ‘pen into Monday’s game because of the absolute atrocities that were Saturday and Sunday’s game and the lack of need to pitch anyone except the bottom of the bullpen.
Pitching Matchups
Monday: Rich Hill vs. Jameson Taillon
Hill, even though he is the oldest pitcher in baseball, has still managed to tap into the same fountain of youth that he’s been drinking from for the last six years. “Dick Mountain” is 3-2 with a 3.63 ERA for the Rays and has been the team’s second most reliable starter behind Tyler Glasnow. He’s on Season Six of his return from injury and obscurity and has been just as good as he’s been in his past few seasons, striking out more than a batter an inning and rocking a 3.91 FIP that shows his quality performance is not a fluke. Hill has faced the Yankees twice in Tropicana Field this year, giving up four runs in six innings in his first start and then shutting them down in his second while striking out nine. It’s a marvel that he’s still getting the job done at 41 when his career seemed over just a few years ago.
He’ll be opposed by Jameson Taillon, who last pitched against the White Sox last weekend. Taillon threw five shutout innings in that start and has pitched miles better at Yankee Stadium this year (2.42 ERA at home, 9.18 ERA on the road). He didn’t fare well against Tampa in his last time facing them and he’ll be tapped to stop this skid for New York.
Tuesday: Tyler Glasnow vs. TBD (projected Domingo German)
Glasnow is having a superb season as the newest Rays ace. He is 4-2 with a 2.57 ERA, battling with Shane Bieber and Gerrit Cole for supremacy atop the American League strikeout leaderboard. Glasnow has electric stuff and while he can be a bit wild at times, he’s harnessed his stuff better this year. With Blake Snell in San Diego, he is by far Tampa’s greatest mound threat. The Yankees saw Glasnow once this season at the Stadium, and while he only pitched five innings and walked four batters, he gave up merely one run because lol the Yankees offense. Giancarlo Stanton will be back in the lineup against Glasnow, though, and he teed off Glasnow last October for some monster home runs.
Opposing Glasnow will be Domingo German, who is on a run of stellar pitching since mid April. He has a 2.09 ERA since April 22nd and has been the Yankees second best starter now that Corey Kluber is out. German was a tough luck loser in last week’s doubleheader against the Blue Jays, only giving up two runs but taking the loss because, again, the Yankees offense forgot how to score.
Wednesday: Shane McClanahan vs. TBD (projected Jordan Montgomery)
One of the Rays top pitching prospects, McClanahan was called up this year for his regular season MLB debut, but actually made his official MLB debut last October against the Yankees in the playoffs. He pitched in two games and gave up two runs, but has been much better as a starter this season. In his first six MLB starts, he’s pitched to a 3.29 ERA, although he hasn’t pitched to much length. His last start against the Royals was the best one, as he went five shutout innings. Jordan Montgomery will pitch for the Yankees and his last start against Tampa was one of his best - six innings of one run ball with nine strikeouts. He was mediocre in his last outing against Toronto, but has been alternating good and bad starts, so you figure he is due for a good one.
Thursday: TBD vs. TBD (projected Ryan Yarborough vs. Gerrit Cole)
One of the mysteries of baseball right now is how a guy with the slowest average fastball velocity in the game routinely shuts down the Yankees. Yarborough alternates between being a bulk guy behind an opener and a starter on his own and has been very successful in this role for years for Tampa. In 2021, he has a 4.26 ERA, although it’s about a run lower since the calendar turned to May. This year, he’s pitched against the Yankees twice in games that Gerrit Cole has started and gone 1-1, winning the first matchup at Yankee Stadium and dropping the second one in Tampa. Aside from a Texas sized bump in the road, Cole has been flawless this year. Last time he pitched in Tampa, he put up one of the best pitching performances of the year, an eight inning, no run, twelve strikeout performance. With the way Yarborough pitches against the Yankees, Cole might need to do something similar this time out as well.
Yankees vs. Rays History
The Yankees and Rays have plenty of recent history against each other to draw. They’ve already played nine times this year, with the Rays winning six of those matchups. These two teams have been at each other’s throats in the last few years, engaging in some beanball wars and meeting in the 2020 playoffs in a series ultimately won by the Rays in five games. This might be the most fierce rivalry in the American League right now and the winner of the head to head matchups will likely win the division, as has been the case in each of the last two years. CC Sabathia may be retired, but his hatred of Tampa lives on through the current team.
Thoughts Before the Series
Yes, it’s a long season. Yes, there are 162 games and you don’t need to win all of them. Yes, the Yankees are still in playoff position (barely). That being said, this last week was a very concerning week of Yankees baseball. My reason for confidence last week was shot, as the team did the thing they were doing well worse (pitching) and somehow also did the thing they weren’t doing well worse (hitting). They enter this series 4.5 games back of Tampa and a Rays sweep basically makes the division a long shot in early June. Teams don’t just waltz back from 8.5 game deficits, so it’s very important for the Yankees to at the least, split the series, and ideally win 3 or 4 games. The Rays are a talented team who know how to exploit the Yankees’ weaknesses and it will not be an easy matchup, but it’s pretty apparent that the AL East is going to be a dogfight and the Yankees need to come out swinging to stay in the race. This team has shown, at times, to be really really good and at other times, to be really really bad. The inconsistency, especially in the offense, has to stop. The guys on the field need to hit better and the baserunning mistakes cannot happen. It’s one thing to lose a game but there have been multiple times this week where the Yankees looked sloppy in their losses. They’ll have to figure it out fast, as one good week can fix most of their issues but one bad week can sink them.
There has been plenty of fawning over standout seasons from Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole and consternation over poor seasons from Clint Frazier and Gary Sanchez, but one player in the Yankees bullpen has been overlooked in his comeback attempt, which has been very successful thus far. Lucas Luetge, who was the last player to make the team in Spring Training and started off as a long man in the bullpen, has quietly put together an excellent season and worked his way into the bullpen Circle of Trust. Luetge is 2-0 with a 2.66 ERA this season in 23.2 innings and has become the team’s second most reliable lefty option behind Aroldis Chapman. Luetge is rocking a career high 9.1 K/9 rate and a career low 3.2% walk rate. Luetge started the season terribly, serving as the mop-up man and giving up runs in each of his first five games. However, he hasn’t given up a run in his last 13.1 innings. He’s closed games and pitched in some big spots against good teams.
It’s a remarkable season from a player who hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since 2015 and a testament to both him and the Yankees that he was given the opportunity to play and trusted with more responsibility once he showed his potential. As Justin Wilson and Darren O’Day are both on the IL, it seems Luetge will continue to have a major role with this Yankees team and he’s shown that he is plenty capable of handling it.
The most important series of the year is upon us and the Yankees should be thankful they have an opportunity to quickly silence the doubters about their team. How can they beat the Rays, a team they’ve struggled against for the better part of a year now? They will need pitching on the level of what they got three weeks ago in Tampa. New York will have its best four starters lined up this series (Taillon, Montgomery, German and Cole) and all four of those players have shown they can pitch in big situations against good offenses. The likelihood of this offense breaking out is low, so the pressure will be on the pitchers to keep the Rays off the board and give the Yankee lineup the best chance to succeed. The Yankees are very capable of winning this series - they just have to execute. If they don’t, we might be having a very different conversation about their season come Friday.
First pitch today is at 1:05 - summon all your necessary superstitious magic to help out the Yankees in this one, as they’ll definitely need it.
