The New York Yankees defeated the Tampa Bay Rays, 4-2, in the series opener on Monday night at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. With the victory, the Yankees improved to an MLB-best 50-17.
Gerrit Cole started on the mound for New York and was outstanding as he took a no-hitter into the eighth inning. Rays’ second baseman Isaac Paredes broke up the no-hitter with a leadoff single in the eighth. The right-hander surrendered a run on one hit over 7 1/3 innings while walking three and striking out a season-high 12 batters.
Clay Holmes, who came into the game with a 31 1/3 scoreless innings streak, allowed a game-tying infield single in the eighth. Wandy Peralta bounced back from Sunday’s rough outing with a scoreless ninth and picked up his second save of the season.
Anthony Rizzo crushed his 19th home run of the season over the right-field wall in the first to give the Yankees an early 1-0 lead.
In the seventh, Gleyber Torres scored on a two-out fielding error by Rays’ first baseman Ji-Man Choi to make it 2-0.
Tampa Bay plated their runs in the eighth on Yandy Diaz’s RBI groundout and Manuel Margot’s RBI single.
New York responded in the ninth with a pair of runs to retake the lead. Aaron Hicks hammered a run-scoring triple off the right-field wall, and Trevino lifted a sacrifice fly to give the Yankees their two-run lead back.
Rizzo, Hicks, and Josh Donaldson each collected two hits.
The Yankees will send Nestor Cortes to the hill on Tuesday night for the second game of this three-game series. The first pitch is slated for 7:10 p.m.
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