Yankees Kick Off The Road Trip With A Win

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — With four months remaining, there should be ample opportunity for the Yankees to perform better than they did Friday night.

Yet there is a good chance the 4-1 win over the Rays in front of a meager gathering of 14,697 at Tropicana Field was as good as it gets for the Yankees.

Working on five days’ rest for the second straight game and moving to the first-base side of the pitching rubber to create a better angle for his fastball for the second consecutive outing, Masahiro Tanaka threw seven shutout innings and allowed two hits.

Alex Rodriguez turned on a 96-mph fastball from Chris Archer in the pivotal sixth inning for a two-run homer in his seventh at-bat since returning from three weeks on the disabled list.

Brett Gardner climbed the left-field wall to grab Corey Dickerson’s opposite-field drive in the fifth with a man on first and two outs. Aroldis Chapman whiffed the two batters he faced, even if one reached first in the ninth on a passed ball because of a cross-up between the gas-throwing closer and catcher Brian McCann.

“That’s the formula for us. Tanaka was unbelievable. I can’t say enough about Carlos Beltran, the way he has been swinging the bat the last two weeks,” Rodriguez said of the right fielder, whose solo homer in the eighth provided the final run. “When we hand the ball to our bullpen, it’s a good game for us.’’

The Yankees (23-24) have won seven of nine and moved to within 5 ½ games of the AL East-leading Red Sox.

With The Yankees playing 17 of 20 games on the road with only one day off, it was important for them to start this 2nd road trip of that stretch with a win. After dropping 2-3 to Toronto and having A-Rod return, there are a lot of questions about if last week was a fluke and if the return of Rodriguez would throw off the team chemistry. While last night is only a small sample size, it was key to see Alex show productivity with Beltran not slowing up at all because even with a win, if these two struggled it would just be fodder for the media to stir things up.

On the other side of the ball, Tanaka was efficient and dominant for another start. There is always concern when Tanaka has to pitch on normal rest because of his elbow and the rotation structure in Japan, but lately he has stepped up to not need any extra time while show he is an ace. Girardi lifted him after only 82 pitches, which some people will call over-managing, but with our bullpen being rested and the schedule we have coming up, this was the smart move. At times Joe will cost us games by doing too much, but for right now getting the ball in the hands of our pen is key to save a guy like Tanaka for his next start.

This week provides another opportunity to jump over struggling teams in our division and give us a shot at retribution for a series loss to Baltimore in early May, that should’ve been a win. The next step is Pineda continuing to show improvement today against a struggling Matt Moore. Mike has a .500 record both against Tampa as a whole and at the Trop, but his era in those games is down in the 3’s which would be drastically better than his current 6.34 era.