Randy Arozarena had a home run, double and drove in four runs, Yandy Diaz went deep and finished with two RBIs, and the Tampa Bay Rays got past the New York Yankees 7-2 on Saturday afternoon in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Arozarena went 2-for-3, scored twice and walked. Diaz was 3-for-4 with two doubles and three runs. Ben Rortvedt walked twice and scored.
Isaac Paredes had two hits, a double and an RBI as the Rays evened the series with New York at a game each.
In his 80-pitch outing, Zack Littell (2-2) yielded two runs on four hits with three strikeouts and two walks in 5 2/3 innings. He won for the first time since March 30.
The Yankees’ Anthony Volpe went 3-for-4 with two RBIs and a stolen base, and Austin Wells doubled and scored.
New York starter Nestor Cortes (1-4) went 5 1/3 innings and allowed four runs on five hits. He struck out five and walked three over 89 pitches.
Diaz rocked the first pitch the Rays saw from Cortes deep to left-center. The 401-foot drive cleared the wall for his second homer of the year.
However, the visitors answered in the second with two runs. Volpe capitalized on Littell’s wildness with a two-out soft liner to left to plate Anthony Rizzo and Wells.
The Rays erupted for three runs and a 4-2 lead in the third after Jose Siri opened with a walk. Diaz scorched a double off the left-field wall. Arozarena then jumped on Cortes’ next pitch for a three-run, opposite-field blast to right-center, his seventh of the season.
Littell settled into a groove and tossed three scoreless innings, facing just 10 batters and holding New York to just Volpe’s second hit.
In the seventh, after reliever Garrett Cleavinger hit New York’s No. 9 hitter Trent Grisham, Jason Adam came on with two outs and allowed Volpe’s third hit.
With runners on the corners, Adam got Juan Soto to hit a fly ball deep to center that Siri caught a couple of steps onto the warning track to end the inning.
Diaz was back at it in the seventh as the Rays created separation. He doubled in Rortvedt, who had opened the inning with a walk against Dennis Santana, to increase the lead to 5-2.
Arozarena hit a double to left to bring in Diaz, and Paredes hit a sacrifice fly to cap the three-run inning and give Tampa Bay a 7-2 advantage.
–Field Level Media
