Rays: 1, Yankees: 5, - The Nightmare is Over

Fair warning: the 2nd half of the double header went just as bad as the 1st one. Lets get this one over with.

Rays scored first (again) off a Tommy Pham single to drive in Nate Lowe in the 3rd inning.

But the Yankees responded in the 5th off a Luke Voit homer to tie the game at 1-1 after 5 innings.

Up to this point, Charlie Morton had been cruising. He was at 54 pitches, 5 IP, 2H, 1 R, 4 Ks, and 1 BB. Rays had 7 baserunners through 5.0 IP and couldn’t capitalize, but that's not new news for this series.

Then the 6th inning happened and everything just fell apart. Morton looked fine at the beginning, getting Gardner to ground out after a leadoff double. But then he started to fall apart. None of the pitches were close to the strike zone, and Morton walked Aaron Judge and Edwin Encarnacion.

A called balk on Morton (Zunino called for time super late, while Morton started his motion. Morton reacted and BAM! you got yourself a balk) gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead with only one out.

Its hard to say how the back-to-back walks plus the balk effected Morton, because Didi Gregorious hit a double to make it 4-1 Rays. Morton got Luke Voit to line out sharply to Nate Lowe, but Gleybar Torres singled and Morton walked the next batter, Gio Urshella to give the Yankees another bases loaded situation.

Final line for Morton: 5.2 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 4 BB, and 4 Ks. Andrew Kittredge would take over and...walk the Mike Tauchmann to make the Yankees score 5-1.

Andrew Kittredge did have a clean 7th inning, including some spectacular help from Willy Adames and Nate Lowe on two plays. After a leadoff double, Kittredge got Judge to ground out from Brosseau to Nate Lowe. Lowe then fired a laser to Adames at 3B and nabbed a sneaky Brett Gardner trying to advance to 3B.

I’m so glad to get out of NYC for now.