ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A little more than two years ago, Masahiro Tanaka outpitched a then-at-the-height-of-his-powers Chris Sale at Fenway Park. “We’re comfortable with him facing anybody,” pitching coach Larry Rothschild said after Tanaka beat Sale and the Red Sox, 3-0, on April 27, 2017, with a three-hitter. A similar scenario played out Sunday afternoon at Tropicana Field. Tanaka, an afterthought entering the day against reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell, outperformed the lefthander in the Yankees' 7-1 victory over the Rays in front of a sellout crowd of 25,025. The Yankees (24-16), who won despite striking out 17 times, took two of three games to move within a half-game of AL East-leading Tampa Bay (24-15). They are 18-7 since their 6-9 start. “That’s vintage Masa,” catcher Austin Romine said. “He tends to always step up for us in big games. He’s going against one of the best pitchers in the game and today he went out and just kept putting up zeros.” Tanaka, 0-2 with a 5.63 ERA in his previous three starts, allowed one run and five hits in seven innings. He walked none and struck out seven in improving to 3-3 with a 3.44 ERA. “You try to kind of keep up with him,” Tanaka said through his translator, referring to Snell, who struck out 12 in 5 2/3 innings. “Obviously, he’s one of the best pitchers in the league right now, so you just want to match up, and I felt I was able to do a pretty good job today.” Subscribe to Newsday’s sports newsletter Receive stories, photos and videos about your favorite New York teams plus national sports news and events. By clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy. The series had its share of oddities, including the Yankees’ winning rally Friday night being sparked when Gary Sanchez got a hit on a ball that clanked off one of the overhanging catwalks and a 43-minute delay in the top of the ninth inning Sunday when the stadium lights went off line with the count 0-and-1 on Thairo Estrada. When the game resumed, Estrada homered to right on an 0-and-2 pitch for a 4-1 lead. Gio Urshela’s two-run double with the bases loaded and Brett Gardner’s sacrifice fly made it 7-1. Entering the ninth, Urshela had struck out four times and Estrada had fanned three times. Aaron Boone left himself open to second-guessing by pulling Tanaka after seven innings and 73 pitches, only four in the seventh. With runners on second and third and one out in the eighth, Zack Britton struck out Ji-Man Choi and Yandy Diaz to preserve the 3-1 lead. “Masa went out and set the tone for us and we did enough against Snell, who was pretty tough,” Boone said. Especially early. Snell (3-4, 3.56) came out with no-hit stuff, throwing three perfect innings and striking out 10 through four innings. But after he retired the first two batters in the fifth, Romine doubled to left-center, Mike Tauchman lined an RBI double off the top of the centerfield wall and DJ LeMahieu slashed an RBI single to right to give Tanaka a 2-0 lead. That improved LeMahieu to 16-for-33 with runners in scoring position. Tanaka retired the Rays on only seven pitches in the bottom of the inning. “Obviously, I was pumped up,” he said. “But I think the important part for me was to go out there after that inning and shut them down.” Tanaka, with what Romine said was his best splitter of the season, retired 12 straight after Avisail Garcia’s one-out single in the second. The streak was emphatically ended by Austin Meadows with one out in the sixth when he launched a 2-and-2 slider to center for his eighth homer to make it 2-1. Luke Voit led off the eighth with a walk against Ryne Stanek and scored on a two-out wild pitch to make it 3-1. Shortly thereafter, the lights went out. And when Tropicana's power came back on in the ninth, so did the Yankees'.<doc-sep>Against what could only be described as the Yankees’ B-Team, it looked like a special night was brewing right away for the Rays’ ace Blake Snell. Masahiro Tanaka, meanwhile, appeared to have a tougher test against a potent and healthy Rays offense. Yet it was Tanaka who prevailed when all was said and done, leading his Yankees to a 7-1 win over the first-place Rays and their third consecutive series victory. Snellzilla absolutely terrorized the Bombers’ bats in the early going. Whether he was serving up 97 mph fastballs that took off above the zone or devastating curveballs that plummeted down below it, the Yankees simply had no answer for the reigning AL Cy Young, who was perfect through three innings after taking a perfect game into sixth in his last outing. DJ LeMahieu, the contact-hitting whiz, predictably registered the Yankees’ first hit on a weak grounder to third to lead off the fourth. But after Luke Voit drew an eight-pitch walk, Snell recovered to strike out the Yankees’ 3-4-5 hitters — all swinging. Between his prior start and his first four innings of work today, Snell allowed no runs on two singles and one walk while striking out 19. It was the bottom of order that ultimately broke through against Snell. Following an Austin Romine double with two outs in the fifth, Mike Tauchman drove in the game’s first run two pitches later. Still the odds-on favorite to be sent down when Aaron Hicks makes his season debut tomorrow, Tauchman crushed a mistake fastball from Snell to dead center field, missing a home run by inches. The number nine hitter let out a scream as he cruised into second base — emblematic of the passion that this underdog team has played with all season long. LeMahieu then sliced another single to the opposite field, as he is wont to do, and gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead. Another multi-hit day for DJ. pic.twitter.com/MTA9AarIZ7 — New York Yankees (@Yankees) May 12, 2019 Living up to his reputation as a big game pitcher, Tanaka put on his ace cap and matched Snell zero for zero. In fact, although he was less overpowering than his counterpart, he was far more efficient, hurling just 73 pitches in seven innings of one-run ball. And unlike in a few recent clunkers, Tanaka consistently kept his breaking balls down with the pinpoint command that has made him so successful in his career. His splitter still didn’t have quite the biting action it does when he’s at his best, while his fastball hovered around 90 mph. But by effectively mixing and locating those offerings, he managed to set up his slider, which had terrific movement. The lone blemish for Tanaka was a sixth-inning home run off the bat of Austin Meadows, the Rays’ MVP to this point. After adding a single against another tough customer in Zack Britton, the former top prospect now boasts an otherworldly 1.148 OPS. Tropicana Field is always full of surprises, and not the good kind. This afternoon was no exception, as the indoor stadium experienced a nearly hour-long delay due to a power outage. When the lights finally came back on, Thairo Estrada confirmed that the power had returned with a solo home run, his second career round-tripper. In all, the Yankees would add four runs in the ninth to give Aroldis Chapman the night off. The big blow, per usual, came from Mr. Clutch Gio Urshela, who doubled with the bases loaded. Moved up to the three-hole after hitting at the bottom of the order in every other game this year, Urshela had been 0-4 with four strikeouts before the double. Miguel Andujar — the man Urshela was called up to replace — continued his post-injury slump, finishing 0-5 with three strikeouts. He’s hitting .128 compared to Urshela’s .341. Chad Green provided the Yankees with perhaps the best sign of the day in the bottom half of the ninth. In his first game since being recalled from Triple-A, he showcased improved velocity and command, striking out the side to end the game. Green’s ERA is still an astronomical 14.54, of course, but he certainly looked like the dominant reliever we saw in 2017-18. It was one of the more important wins of the young season for this young, hungry squad, who have won seven of their last ten against exclusively good teams. Even without Gary Sanchez and Gleyber Torres in the lineup today, the new Yankees formula of timely hitting, strong starting pitching, and a lockdown bullpen paid dividends yet again. Their record improves to 24-16 — a .600 winning clip through 40 games — while they miraculously find themselves just half a game out of first in the AL East. The Yankees are back home tomorrow to square off against the last-place Orioles. They’ll send out Jonathan Loaisiga (4.50 ERA), looking to rebound from a rough start, to face the Orioles’ David Hess (5.50 ERA). The Rays will also have an easy matchup this week in the Marlins, before the two teams battle again in the Bronx on Friday.<doc-sep>This counts as the strangest game of the season to date, right? The Yankees out-dueled the reigning Cy Young winner, then withstood a 43-minute power outage to beat the Rays. New York now sits a half-game behind Tampa Bay for the lead in the AL East. Winner of the Game Blake Snell carved up the Yankees through the first four innings on Sunday afternoon’s game. The lineup had no answer for the reigning Cy Young winner, at least until the fifth inning. With two outs, Austin Romine doubled to set things in motion. Mike Tauchman followed with an RBI double, one that missed going for a home run by an inch or two. DJ LeMahieu then singled to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead. These three get Winner of the Game honors today. Honorable Mention: Masahiro Tanaka for allowing one run over seven innings, Zach Britton for working out of trouble in the eighth, Thairo Estrada and Gio Urshela for adding on in the ninth, and Chad Green for a successful return to the big leagues Loser of the Game Tropicana Field for losing power in the ninth inning. Chart<doc-sep>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Yankees clung to a two-run lead against their division rival, the Tampa Bay Rays, in the top of the ninth inning here on Sunday afternoon when rookie infielder Thairo Estrada stepped to the plate. Around 45 minutes later, Estrada smashed a solo home run that began a four-run scoring outburst. Estrada’s at-bat against Rays reliever Austin Pruitt lasted just three pitches, but it was extended to an extreme degree thanks to a 43-minute delay between the first and second pitches. Such is life at Tropicana Field. Other stadiums may contend with rain delays. But at the domed 30-year-old Tropicana Field, considered among the worst parks — if not the worst — in the major leagues, they have delays of their own kind — this time it was a power failure that took some time for the operations staff to correct. Despite the unusual delay, the Yankees went on to topple the Rays, 7-1, taking two of three games in the series. An already depleted Yankees lineup was missing a few extra bats in the game, and the leftover players struck out 12 times against Blake Snell, the 2018 American League Cy Young Award winner. But the short-handed Yankees, like they have so many times this season, still won.<doc-sep>
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As the lights high above Tropicana Field’s fake playing surface remained dark, you wondered what it would mean for the final inning of what had been a scintillating game between the Yankees and Rays. Thanks to two runs in the fifth off Blake Snell and another via a wild pitch in the eighth, the Yankees held a two-run lead entering what they hoped would be the final inning Sunday to give them two wins in three games against the AL East leaders. Then the power went out and stayed that way for 43 minutes. When the juice was restored, the Yankees’ muscles appeared to receive a jolt from the main switch that controlled the electrical feed because they responded by scoring four runs in the ninth that sealed a 7-1 victory that was witnessed by 25,025, which amounts to a sellout in a venue that has outlived its usefulness. “I have never been through something like that, that went so long to complete an at-bat,” said Thairo Estrada, who had an 0-1 count on him when the lights came back in the ninth. Estrada had an 0-2 count when he drove an Austin Pruitt pitch into the right-field seats to hike the lead to 4-1. Three more runs on Gio Urshela’s two-run double and Brett Gardner’s sacrifice fly enabled the Yankees to take two of three from the Rays and move within a half-game of the AL East leaders with their 16th win in 22 games. “I was looking for something good in the zone that I could connect,’’ said Estrada, who started at short so Gleyber Torres’s sore right arm could rest. Friday night the lights at the outdated ballpark flickered and went out for 15 seconds. That wasn’t the case Sunday. see also Lights suddenly go out during Yankees game The Yankees’ pitching was lights-out Sunday, and then it got... After the lights returned, third-base umpire Laz Diaz approached the Yankees’ third-base dugout wanting to know how much time the players were going to need to be ready. “He basically signaled me out and said, ‘Gardy you are so old, how much time do you need to get going?’ ” said Gardner, who didn’t start against lefty Blake Snell but singled in the eighth and had the sac fly in the ninth. Across the first four innings, Snell dominated the Yankees and had the coaches talking among themselves. “Snell had it going. He had all his pitches and was able to strike his breaking ball, the changeup was good and he had the chase breaking ball,’’ Boone said of last year’s AL Cy Young Award winner, who struck out 10 in the first four innings, including six straight from the first to third inning. “He was pitching like the Cy Young Award winner.’’ The mystery of Snell (3-4) started to crack in the fifth when Austin Romine doubled with two outs and scored on Mike Tauchman’s two-bagger that hit the top of the center-field wall. DJ LeMahieu singled home Tauchman for a 2-0 lead. While Snell was more electric, Masahiro Tanaka was more effective. He matched Snell through four and threw a perfect fifth armed with a two-run lead. Austin Meadows homered with one out in the sixth to make it a one-run game and Tanaka worked out of a two-on, two-out jam to keep it that way. A four-pitch seventh was the end of his day after 73 pitches. “Obviously I was pumped up and it was important after that inning to shut them down,’’ said Tanaka, who gave up a run, and five hits in seven innings and evened his record at 3-3. Zack Britton sweated through a nail-biting eighth and Aroldis Chapman was ready for the ninth until the Yankees scored four. In his first game back from the minors, Chad Green struck out the side in the ninth. “Sit and watch,’’ Gardner said of how the players in the dugout killed time. “It’s nice to play well here and win a series, to know we are capable of doing that.”