Rays edge Yankees on Zobrist's 9th-inning hit
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}St. Petersburg, FL (SportsNetwork.com) - Ben Zobrist singled in the only run of the night with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, lifting the Tampa Bay Rays to a 1-0 win over the New York Yankees in the opener of a three-game series.
Zobrist's second hit of the game brought home Logan Forsythe from third and sent the Yankees to a fourth loss in their last five outings.
"I'm still looking for us to get back to .500," Rays manager Joe Maddon said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The contest featured strong starting pitching on both ends. Alex Colome, recalled from Triple-A Durham on Monday, scattered six hits over 6 2/3 scoreless frames in just his second major-league start of the season, while New York's Chris Capuano kept the Rays off the board in six innings of work.
Tampa Bay recorded just five hits for the game, but three of them came off Shawn Kelley (3-6) in the deciding ninth.
"I gotta go out there and put up a zero," said Kelley.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Forsythe and James Loney laced back-to-back one-out singles to put the winning run in scoring position with one out. Kelley briefly regrouped to strike out David DeJesus, but walked pinch-hitter Matt Joyce to load the bases in front of Zobrist's clean hit to right field.
Joel Peralta (3-4) issued a leadoff walk in the top of the ninth, then set down the next three Yankee hitters to help set up Zobrist's heroics.
Capuano bounced back strongly from a horrendous outing against the Rays just five days ago, in which he recorded just one out while surrendering four runs. The veteran lefty was touched for a leadoff single by Zobrist in the bottom of the first inning, but didn't permit another hit until the fifth while pitching around four walks.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Colome was equally as good, pitching near flawlessly in each of his first six innings except for the second, when the young righty gave up singles to Mark Teixeira and Carlos Beltran and threw a wild pitch to put runners at second and third with one out. He worked out of the jam, however, by getting Ichiro Suzuki to pop out harmlessly and retiring John Ryan Murphy on a fly ball.
The Yankees put forth another mild threat when Suzuki doubled with two away in the seventh, but reliever Steve Geltz got pinch-hitter Brian McCann to fly out and end the top of the inning.
Game Notes
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Tampa Bay now leads the season series by a 10-7 margin and became the first team since the Red Sox from 1973-75 to win at least 10 games against the Yankees in three straight campaigns ... Yankees third baseman Chase Headley was ejected by home plate umpire Marty Foster while at-bat in the top of the seventh inning as he argued a called strike ... Beltran returned to the lineup after missing six straight games with soreness in his right elbow ... Derek Jeter, mired in an 0-for-24 slump, did not play for New York.