Yanks: Tanaka Moves To 11-1

Masahiro Tanaka didn't have his best stuff, but he gutted out a 6 inning, 1R, 5H, 2BB, 10K! start to gain his 11th win of the season against one loss.  The run actually came on on a Reyes homer on the first pitch of the game.  After than the Rays started grinding on him and taking a lot of pitches.  But Tanaka started grinding back and striking them out.  His era sunk below 2.00.

Brett Gardner started the Yanks off with a 12 pitch PA that ended in a ground out, but he was in it to win it and later hit a 2 run jack to put the Yanks up.   Later Tex knocked in an insurance run.  McCann was awful at the plate again tonight, making some more of his one pitch outs.  It's bad enough that he's an out hog, but he doesn't even make the other team work very often.

Betances pitched a perfect 7th and 8th striking out 3.   The variation between a 99 mph 4 seamer and an 83 mph knuckle curve must be startling for major league hitters.    Boy, have these two pitchers been great so far.

Robertson pitched the ninth for the save and got Navarro to ground out, then got a K, then got grounded dow for an 8 or 9 pitch triple before K'ing the last batter and preserving the win.

SI got their second walk of win of the year a little earlier. Nathan Mikolas had the game winning hit.  

Good stuff.