Yankees Snap Skid, Rays Battle Delays to Extend Win Streak

Enduring a five-game losing steak, the New York Yankees ended it with a 4-1 win over their rival, the Boston Red Sox, on Friday.

The Yankees (31-23) now sit one game behind the AL East-leading Red Sox (33-23).

CC Sabathia

The victory came on a strong pitching performance by C.C. Sabathia (5-4) with a 10-strikeout game. This ended a five-start winless streak for the lefty. His last win came on April 27 vs. the Toronto Blue Jays.

Sabathia brought his fastball, speed and slider to the mound and held the Red Sox to one run on six hits in his 7 1/3 innings of pitching. He had zero walks.

The pitcher said of the game via MLB.com, “I always feel like it’s my responsibility when I’m out there to give this team a chance to win — go out and pitch well enough to try to win. With us having a tough week, getting swept by the Mets, you want to go out and have a good game. I was lucky enough to do that tonight.”

In addition to solid pitching, Kevin Youkilis, who came off the disabled list on Friday and returned to the lineup to play for the first time in a month, contributed a run-scoring single. Mark Teixeira, who had also just been activated, played his inaugural game for the season, went 0-for-3 for a walk and scored run.

Brett Gardner added a run in the seventh.

For Boston, their only run vs Sabathia came from Dustin Pedroia’s double and score from a Mike Napoli double.

Jon Lester (6-2) saw his second straight pitching loss. In his 6 1/3 innings of pitching, he gave up four runs with six hits and a hit batter.

The series continues in New York on Saturday night. Lefty Felix Doubront (3-2, 5.29 ERA) will take the mound for the Red Sox and will look for his first win in his six starts. For the Yankees, righty Phil Hughes (2-3, 4.97 ERA) has pitching duty and he’s looking for his fourth straight win against Boston.

The Yankees get another win on Saturday (-119, 9 o/u).

Tampa Bay Rays Extend Win Streak to Six

Sitting two games behind Boston, Tampa Bay defeated the Cleveland Indians 9-2 in a late-ending game thanks to rain delays.

Initially set to begin at 7:05 p.m. ET, the teams battled three rain delays before the game finally started again at 12:13 a.m. after a 2 hour, 39 minute third delay. When it was all said and done–a total 4:49 delay–Tampa won at 2:53 a.m.

But it was worth the wait as it represented the sixth straight victory for Tampa.

James Loney

James Loney had two home runs (his first multi-homer game since September 2007) while four combined Tampa Bay pitchers had a one-hitter. This came on Cleveland’s Ryan Raburn RBI double in the fifth inning from reliever Josh Lueke.

Unbeaten Matt Moore (8-0) kicked things off for Tampa on the mound with Jamey Wright (1-1) relieving him and pitching three innings. Next up was Lueke, then Cesar Ramos pitching three hitless innings in his inaugural career save.

For Cleveland, Corey Kluber (3-3) was the starting pitcher, followed by Scott Barnes (0-1).

The two teams will resume play on Saturday with a quick turnaround time for the 1:05 p.m. ET scheduled start–just 10-plus hours after Friday’s game ended.

Righty Chris Archer will kick off his season pitching debut for Tampa against the team who drafted him in 2006.

Archer said of facing his former team via ESPN, “This does add a little extra, but it’s not super over-the-top or anything. I know there are some coaches in the Indians organization who always want to see me succeed and do well, so to come up here and play in front of them is going to be pretty cool.”

Indians righty Ubaldo Jimenez will take the mound (3-3, 5.57 ERA) and may lead his team to the win (-125, 9 o/u).