Monday, 4 a.m.
Maybe we have discovered what the problem is with the New York Yankees. Perhaps they worried about the wrong things .
Instead of winning baseball games, the Yankees prefer to concentrate on hitting opposing batters. Instead of catching flared balls at crucial times, they want to leave bruises. Instead of keeping opponents off the bases, the Yankees seem to relish putting them on.
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And so it goes. The Yankees hit four more Rays on Sunday afternoon. This season, they’ve hit 12 Rays in 13 games (the Rays have hit two Yankees). A dozen hit batters in a season isn’t a coincidence.
The Plunkmasters of the American League, by the way, are 19 games out of the AL East lead.
Hint: If this is an attempt at intimidation, it isn’t working.
The Rays secured a 7-4 victory over the Yankees Sunday afternoon, a come-from-behind affair that included the benches clearing twice after Randy Arozarena was hit in the eighth inning by Albert Abreu. Arozarena turned that into the Rays’ final run when he stole second, stole third and scored on Brandon Lowe’s double.
It was the 80th win of the year for the Rays, who trail Baltimore by two games in the AL East.
For the day, Lowe had three hits and drove in four runs. He had a solo homer in the first inning.
The Rays started the game well, scoring twice in the first inning. But they scuffled afterward until the sixth inning when Harold Ramirez golfed a bloop over the head of Gleyber Torres to knock in two runs.
Zack Littell got the win for the Rays, but he gave up all four runs. He gave up only four hits, but three of them were home runs.
The Rays have today off, then play in Miami on Tuesday. Aaron Civale will start for the Rays against Sandy Alcantara.