Last night, the Rays offense just couldn’t break through against Masahiro Tanaka, who shutdown the Rays for nine innings as they could only muster three hits against him. The Yankees offense didn’t need much to defeat the Rays, and despite the strong effort by a returning Yonny Chirinos, New York tallied four runs en route to a 4-0 victory.

C.J. Cron provided two of the Rays three hits, including a double, while Jesus Sucre collected the only other Rays hit of the night. Chih-Wei Hu took over with two outs in the seventh for Chirinos, who worked 6 ²⁄₃ innings, allowing three runs on six hits, while he walked one and struck out six. Hu surrendered a run on two hits, while he picked up four strikeouts over 2 ¹⁄₃ innings.

The Rays and Yankees will play their series finale this afternoon with a 12:10 start time. Nate Eovaldi will take the mound, for possibly the last time in a Rays uniform, and he’ll be opposed by Luis Cessa.

Rays News

• Prior to yesterday’s game, Kevin Cash told the media that he expected the Rays to very active on the trade market
• The Rays released some of the details for their 2008 team celebration, which will happen on Saturday, August 4th. Former players to be there include Rocco Baldelli, Akinori Iwamura, B.J. Upton, and Jason Bartlett, as well as many others. Also, this Akinori Iwamura bobble head will be given out.

• Ken Rosenthal wrote about teams deciding when to make critical trades. In the report, he mentions that the San Diego Padres are making a “big push” to acquire Chris Archer
• Joey Wendle was announced as the Rays Heart and Hustle award winner
• Jonny Venters is nearing his return after another rehab outing with the Charlotte Stone Crabs
• Per another report from The Athletic, the Milwaukee Brewers are considering going after Chris Archer as well

Around the League

• The Baltimore Orioles continued their teardown as they traded Zach Britton to the New York Yankees for a trio of prospects
• The Oakland Athletics came back from trailing, 10-2, staging a miraculous comeback, winning 13-10 in extras
• The Pittsburgh Pirates have won 11 in a row, and Corey Dickerson has been among the main causes of their recent success
• Burch Smith picked up his first MLB victory since 2013, he’s still with the Kansas City Royals after being selected in the Rule 5 draft
• Evan Longoria is returning from the disabled list, so McCovey Chronicles poses the question what exactly to do with the former face of the Rays
• The Toronto Blue Jays are shopping Roberto Osuna around, the embattled closer will be eligible to return from a 75 game suspension on August 4th
• When his career is over, Joey Votto wants to drive a school bus