ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – It took the newest Yankee to get their biggest hit.
Rougned Odor, who played his first game since joining the Rangers, delivered a two-out RBI single in the 10th inning on Sunday to bring in the winning run before the Yankees retired for an 8-4 victory on the Rays.
It broke a three-game loss streak and came after the Yankees had previously had numerous opportunities to take the lead – and failed.
Aaron Judge started 10th in second place and Aaron Hicks was scraped on the leg by a pitch from Collin McHugh. Mike Tauchman knocked the runners over for Gleyber Torres.
With the infield in, Torres grounded out to short and Willy Adames threw Judge easily to the plate.
Just when it looked like the Yankees were ready to waste another chance, Odor – assigned for an assignment by the Rangers for Opening Day – delivered his first hit as a Yankee to score Hicks.
Gary Sanchez followed with a run-scoring single to make it 6-4 and Gio Urshela then came with his fourth hit of the day, an RBI-single to the right that also scored Sanchez when Manuel Margot let the ball pass him .
Albert Abreu, just recalled from the alternate site, ended the game with a scoreless 2nd 10th.
Before the game, Aaron Boone insisted that his line-up was ready to break out despite some recent lackluster performances.
“If the guys we have, talented as they are, routinely go there to string up good bats, I promise, the results will be there,” Boone said. “And someone will have to pay for this first week’s fight.”
That turned out to be the Rays – at least in the 10th.
The inning earlier, the Yankees’ bats were still lost, as they found a way not to score in a wild top half of the ninth.
Urshela started the inning with a hard ball to the ground in the middle that deflected a diving Adames to the right, enabling a hasty Urshela to finish second for a leadoff double.
Brett Gardner didn’t bunt Urshela to third base and instead walked.
DJ LeMahieu then grounded to third base to force Urshela, but Kevin Padlo’s throwing error enabled Gardner to advance to third base and LeMahieu to second base.
With Judge at the plate, Diego Castillo bounced on a pitch and Gardner started to come home, but catcher Mike Zunino caught him out of the air and Gardner got caught in a rundown for the second out.
Right followed by grounds too short to end the threat.
Torres had tied the score with an RBI-single in the eighth, but the Yankees’ battle with runners in scoring position continued.
The back-and-forth game also had some drama, as warnings were issued to both banks after Jordan Montgomery drilled Austin Meadows in the shoulder in the bottom of the first inning.
Montgomery then hit Meadows again, this time to the left wrist, with two outs and no one on in the fifth. The umpires met, but allowed Montgomery to stay in the game.
It was the fourth time in this series that a Rays-batter was hit with a pitch.
Montgomery also put the Yankees in a hole in the second.
He gave up a leadoff single to Mike Brosseau and after a few flyouts, Zunino crushed a 3-2 substitution in the left seats to give the Rays a 2-0 lead.
It was short lived, as Tampa Bay opener Brent Honeywell Jr. was removed after two perfect innings in his MLB-debut and replaced by ex-Met Michael Wacha.
The first four Yankees Wacha faced reached base, with Urshela firing a two-run shot to the center that traveled an estimated 453 feet and Gary Sanchez scoring to even out the game, 2-2.
Gardner reached on an infield-single and moved to third base on LeMahieu’s ground-rule double to the right. A walk to Judge loaded the bases for Hicks, who grounded into a double play.
That scored Gardner, but helped Wacha escape the inning, as he got Giancarlo Stanton on a hard grounder to third base to make it 3-2.
Wacha retired the last nine batters he faced before being replaced by Cody Reed to start the seventh.