Austin Meadows homered and Kevin Kiermaier had two hits and scored twice as the Tampa Bay Rays finished off a historic month of May by defeating the New York Yankees 3-1 Monday at Yankee Stadium.
The Rays could not get anything across on Yankees starter Jameson Taillon in the first couple of innings, but got the offense going in the third, as Kiermaier singled off Taillon and scored on Manuel Margot‘s double into the right field corner.
Meadows doubled the Rays lead an inning later, getting a Taillon pitch on the inside half of the plate and depositing it into the front row of the short porch in right for his team lead-tying 12th home run of the year.
Randy Arozarena made it 3-0 in the fifth, as his RBI single off Taillon scored Kevin Kiermaier, who doubled two batters earlier.
That would be more than enough for Rays starter Rich Hill (4-2), who needed just 56 pitches to throw five shutout innings.
New York’s only run of the game would come in the bottom of the seventh inning when Miguel Andujar homered off Michael Wacha, his first home run of 2021.
Pete Fairbanks struck out Brett Gardner to end the inning, Ryan Thompson worked a perfect eighth, and J.P. Feyereisen put up a zero in the ninth, including striking out Andujar as the potential tying run to earn his third save.
The victory giave the Rays a 22-6 record in the month of May, establishing a new franchise record for wins in any month and break the mark of 21 set in August of 2008 (21-8).
Tampa Bay will look to start the month of June the same way the ended May, by beating the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Tyler Glasnow (4-2, 2.57 ERA) will get the start, taking on Domingo German (4-3, 3.06 ERA). First pitch is scheduled for 7:05.
Steve Carney is the founder and publisher of St. Pete Nine. One of the people most associated with baseball coverage in Tampa Bay, he spent 13 seasons covering the Rays for flagship radio station WDAE, first as producer of Rays Radio broadcasts, then as beat reporter beginning in 2011. He likes new analytics and aged bourbon, and is the owner of one of the ugliest knuckleballs ever witnessed by baseball scouts.
