Not on Monday night. Luis Severino did not get the job done, allowing 7 runs (6 earned) on 11 hits over 5 innings. He struck out 8, and didn't walk anybody, so his control wasn't the problem. He just got hit.
Chad Green, Adam Warren and A.J. Cole each pitched a scoreless inning, but it didn't matter. Giancarlo Stanton went 4-for-4 with a 2-RBI double, and Miguel Andujar went 2-for-4 with an RBI, but it didn't matter.
Rays 7, Yankees 6. WP: Matt Andriese (3-4). SV: Jose Alvarado (4). LP Severino (14-3 -- he had been 14-1).
But last night, Masahiro Tanaka was brilliant. He went the distance, Aaron Boone showing him more confidence than Joe Girardi would have, and he rewarded that confidence with a 3-hit, 1-walk, 9-strikeout shutout. Of his 105 pitches, 74 were strikes.
The Yankees staked him (as an Arsenal fan, I hope the correct grammar isn't "stoke him") to a 1-0 lead before he ever took the mound, starting the game with singles by Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge, a wild pitch by the Rays' Yonny Chirinos that moved the runners over, a strikeout by Stanton, and a groundout by Didi Gregorius that got Gardner home.
The same script was followed in the 5th inning, sort of. Brandon Drury was hit by a pitch, Tyler Wade was sent in to pinch-run for him, Neil Walker singled Wade to 3rd, and Austin Romine hit a groundout that got him home.
A Romine sacrifice fly in the 7th and a Walker single in the 9th provided the final score: Yankees 4, Rays 0. WP: Tanaka (8-2). No save. LP: Chirinos (0-2).
This afternoon's game was frustrating. Injuries to the pitching staff meant that Luis Cessa was sent out to start. A Walker sac fly gave him a 1-0 lead in the 2nd, and he was doing all right, until the 6th inning, when he gave up a single to Adam Moore and home runs to Kevin Kiermaier, 2 runs, and C.J. Chron, solo. (Sounds like the name of a newspaper, short for Central Jersey Chronicle.)
The Yankees left a man on 1st in the 7th, got a run on a Stanton sac fly but stranded another man on 1st in the 8th, and had men on 1st and 2nd with just 1 out in the 9th, but stranded them.
Rays 3, Yankees 2. WP: Diego Castillo (2-1). SV: Sergio Romo (12). LP: Cessa (1-2, and he deserved a better fate).
Attendance for the 3 games: 14,670, 19,579 and 27,372, for a total of 61,621. The Wednesday afternoon game had almost twice as many people as the Monday night game.
I guess all those old people in Tampa Bay weren't willing to stay at a ballgame until 10:00 at night, but they were willing to see a matinee. It's not like they had to go to work the next day.
Or do they? I haven't yet checked the morning papers to see if Trump ended Social Security and Medicare.