New York Yankees beaten by Tampa Bay Rays 3-4 – MLB Update
New York Yankees were defeated by the Tampa Bay Rays 3-4 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida on Monday, September 3 in the opening game of their three match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
For the Rays, starting pitcher James Shields produced a match winning performance on the mound giving up just three runs on five hits while striking-out five Yankees’ batters, laying the foundation of a memorable Rays’ victory.
His counterpart from New York, C.C. Sabathia also pitched with great control and accuracy, allowing just three runs in seven solid innings but the Rays were too hot to handle on Monday as they came back from behind to take a crucial 1-0 series lead.
"When we're playing better teams, I think we play our better baseball," Maddon added. "Everybody talks about the difficulty of the schedule the remaining part of the season, I kind of like it. Actually, I think it's going to bring out the best of us."
Yankees’ relief pitcher David Robertson gave up three hits and one run in the eighth to take his fifth loss of the season. The offence was also unable to live up to the expectations as Yankees failed to score enough runs against their American League East
Division rivals.
After the Rays took an early 2-0 lead, Eric Chavez hit a sacrifice fly to left in the fourth inning to bring Yankees back into the contest. Raul Ibanez also displayed some top quality hitting skills with a triple to deep right centre and Russell Martin drove
in a single to help Yankees take a 3-2 lead.
Evan Longoria and Chris Gimenez scored to help Rays snatch a terrific fight from behind victory.
"Just getting a chance to go up there, hey, what's the worst that can happen? I get out? OK, I've done that before in my life," Gimenez added. "I told myself before I got in the box that this is definitely the biggest at-bat of your life, so you might as
well do something fun."
It will be interesting to see if the Yankees can hold on to their first place to win the AL East title.
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