Yarbrough pitched well but was pulled./JEFFREY S. KING
Wednesday, 3 a.m.
Talk about your classic matchups.
In this dugout, you had Murderer's Row. In the other one, you had Chaz Roe.
Ouch.
The New York Yankees are suddenly threatening to run away with the American League East race. They beat up the Rays and Roe Tuesday night, getting five straight hits in the fifth inning en route to a 6-3 victory that increased their division lead to 2 1/2 games.
It was also a game that manager Kevin Cash will hear about. His team had a 3-2 lead with one out in the fifth when he pulled Ryan Yarbrough, who had pitched
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Pham had two hits for the Rays./CHUCK MULLER
three innings of shutout baseball, for Roe, who came in with a 3.98 ERA. The Yankees immediately had five straight hits and scored three runs to take over the game.
“It was just for the matchups," Cash explained. "It’s a difficult decision. Yarbs had gotten us through one time in the lineup. They’re heavy right-handed, so we thought that was a good spot for Chaz to come in. Obviously, it didn’t work out the way that we would like. I'm not going to say they squared a ton of balls up. They found holes. They’re good. Sometimes they win by hitting the ball out of the ballpark. Sometimes they win by finding holes. It was an unfortunate inning for us.
"I can totally see both sides. We decided to get aggressive. He’d done a lot of good things for us, but I certainly can understand anyone second-guessing the decision."
A familiar problem plagued the Rays, who were only two for eight with runners in scoring position. In their 43 wins this season, the Rays have hit .298 with runners in scoring position. In their 30 losses, they've hit .165.
For the game, the Rays had nine hits. However, they had only two of them in their last four at-bats.
The Rays play the Yankees again today at 1:05 p.m. Blake Snell will pitch against C.C. Sabathia at Yankee Stadium.
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