Game 41: Yankees (Cortes) at Rays (Littell) 4:10 pm EDT

Santana has been quietly solid so far in 2024. He feels like an invisible Yankee.

Caballero stays in, takes a sinker outside,
Then chases a cutter further outside, 1-1
Sinker low in the middle, taken 1-2
Checks on a slider that broke well low and outside, 2-2
Slider below the knees on the outside corner, Caballero lunges and spoils it, bouncing it foul off 3rd.
Then chases a sharp breaking cutter about 6-8 inches off the plate away, waist high. K, inning over, excellent job by Santana saving Cortes a 5th run.

Top 7, 4-2 Rays.
7-8-9 for the Yanks: Wells, Cabrera and Grisham scheduled against the lefty Cleavinger

Boone has to be careful here, if he pulls the plug on the lefties, to go with Torres Stanton and Trevino, he'll have no lefties to use against all the Rays righties later on, especially Fairbanks.

FB well high at 97, overthrown a bit, 2-2
FB inside corner fouled off the right side
Oooggggg
Meatball slider winds up just below middle middle, but Torres late and under, flies out to Palacios.

Jeff is incorrect, if a pitcher finishes an inning, he does NOT have to pitch again the next inning.
In fact, this same pitcher did exactly that last night after whiffing Soto, he came out of the game the next inning.

Grisham takes a FB at the bottom of the zone in the middle, 0-1
Takes another just outside, 1-1
Takes a slider well low/outside, 2-1
Takes a cutter outer 3rd, waist high, 2-2
You can't keep taking multiple hittable pitches every at bat, Grisham, especially ahead in the count.
Chases a slider 3-4 inches outside, slashes it foul down the left side.

Seems like the Yanks are getting clobbered but the tying run is coming to the plate.

Throw over on Grisham.
Slider way way outside and low, 1-0
Great backhand stab by Jackson saves a WP
FB sails high above the inside corner, 2-0
FB at the top, no business chasing that pitch on 2-0 with Soto on deck, fouls it back.