Rays Hand Yankees Another 'Embarrassing' Loss, Win 9-0 to Pull Within 5 Games of

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.There nothing wrong with a little kick-em-while-theyre-down attitude in sports, especially when the recipient is the 27-time world champion New York Yankees, who have doled out more than their fair share of pain through the years https://www.newyorkfanoutlet.com/Masahiro_Tanaka_Jersey .But Friday night, in a massively important American League showdown with the Yankees and Tampa Bay, it was the upstart Rays who did all the bullying. Tampa Bay broke open a close game late with two runs in the seventh and six more in the eighth, winning 9-0 before 17,886 fans at Tropicana Field.The win was huge for the Rays, who are now 73-57 on the season and just five games behind the Yankees in the AL East race. They are 16 games over .500 for the first time all year and are just four games behind New York in the loss column.The race is definitely on.Jeffrey Springs was great on the mound for the Rays, pitching 5 2/3 scoreless innings and allowing just four hits. The Rays bullpen took it from there, pitching 3 1/3 scoreless innings and allowing just one hit. He is 7-4 on the year, and lowered his ERA to 2.62 on the season.The score of that game was not the story of that game the way it ended up, Rays manager Kevin Cash said.Springs was really good. He executed the change-up well and had the fastball right at the top of the zone, getting strikes up there when he needed them.We finished off a good road trip and we wanted to come in and set a good tone and win the first one, and we did.The Yankees free-fall continues. They were once 61-23 this season, and were talking about being the greatest team ever. They are 79-53 now, going just 18-30 in the past two months.They did nothing on Friday night Isiah Kiner-Falefa Jersey , with not a single morsel of good to come out of it. They had only five hits all night, and made three errors, including two errors in the fourth inning that led to the first run of the game.Springs kept them off-balance all night, and made big pitches when he had to in the first, third and sixth inning, when the Yankees got two men on base in each inning. Springs left with two outs in the sixth inning after throwing 97 pitches. JT Chargois got an out to end the inning.Chargois also got the first two outs in the seventh inning, and then lefty reliever Colin Poche struck out Oswaldo Cabrera to end the inning. Jason Adam pitched a perfect eighth with two strikeouts, and Calvin Faucher closed it out https://www.newyorkfanoutlet.com/Lou_Trivino_Jersey , pitching a scoreless night and allowing just one hit.