Currently: For years, Tropicana Field has been a comfortable place for the New York Yankees, with hordes of fans cheering them on against a weak opponent just miles from their team headquarters.
Now, just like the rest of the league, the Yankees are suddenly finding out just how hard it is to win there.
The upstart Tampa Bay Rays look to extend their franchise-record home winning streak to 11 and win their sixth straight overall as they face Chien-Ming Wang and the Yankees on Tuesday in the second game of the AL East rivals’ four-game series.
New York (19-20) came into this series with a 54-32 record all-time in St. Petersburg, which is just across the bay from the Yankees’ year-round headquarters and spring training facility. The Yankees had also won six of their last seven at Tropicana Field, sweeping a two-game set there last month.
But Tampa Bay (22-16) won 7-1 Monday for its 10th consecutive home win and moved six games over .500 for the first time in club history. The Rays, who’ve won 14 of 19 overall, are just one-half game behind East-leading Boston.
“The biggest difference with them is it looks like they’ve got a lot more confidence. You used to play in the past, I’m talking about a few years ago, and it looked like they waited for something to go wrong,” Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said. “Now it seems like they have a lot of confidence, and it starts with their pitching.”
After Matt Garza threw seven shutout innings Monday, Edwin Jackson will try to build off his own impressive outing. Jackson (2-3, 4.04 ERA) tossed eight scoreless innings against Toronto on Thursday - a game the Rays eventually won in 13 innings - rebounding from his shortest start of the season on May 2, when he gave up six runs to Boston in just four innings.
The right-hander has split two starts against the Yankees this season, allowing six runs in 11 innings.
Both times, he faced Andy Pettitte, whom the Rays chased with five runs in just four innings on Monday. They will try to do the same to Wang (6-1, 3.12), who has won six of his last seven starts against Tampa Bay, posting a 2.03 ERA in that span.
That includes Wang’s six shutout innings against the Rays in a home victory on April 6. The Yankees had won each of his first seven starts, but Wang finally took his first loss on Wednesday after giving up three runs in seven innings of a 3-0 loss to Cleveland.
“A lot of nights that’s good enough,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “… Unfortunately we couldn’t score any runs for him.”
That was also a problem for Pettitte on Monday. The Yankees, who learned third baseman Alex Rodriguez will be out at least another week as his quadriceps heals, managed only six hits and didn’t score until the eighth inning.
Their 3-4-5 hitters - Bobby Abreu, Hideki Matsui and Jason Giambi - were a combined 0-for-10 with five strikeouts.
The Rays haven’t had such problems, having scored seven or more runs in three of their last five contests. After hitting a grand slam in the 13th inning to help beat Toronto last week, catcher Dioner Navarro went 3-for-3 with two RBIs on Monday, and Akinori Iwamura has a 10-game hitting streak.
Tampa Bay’s home winning streak is the longest by any team since 2006, and a sixth straight victory on Tuesday would match its season high.
The Rays have allowed only seven runs in their last six home games.
“You can never have enough good players,” Yankees outfielder Johnny Damon told his team’s official Web site, “and it seems like they’re stacked with them right now.”
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