DraftKings Sportsbook<\/a>, while Tampa Bay sits as a +109 underdog. The game total is set at O\/U eight runs.<\/p>\nYankees vs. Rays Preview<\/p>\n
New York Yankees<\/p>\n
The Yankees boast the top ERA in the American League (2.35), and their ERA among starters (2.14) paces the majors by over .50 points. Not bad for a rotation missing Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, and Clarke Schmidt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Friday, New York will attempt to bolster its pitching staff by welcoming erratic right-hander Luis Gil back to the starting five. The 2024 AL Rookie of the Year began this season in Triple-A after an injury-riddled and deflating follow-up campaign in 2025. While surface-level stats remained impressive, Gil struggled to limit traffic thanks to regressed strikeout numbers and a bloated walk rate. When he\u2019s on his game, Gil is one of the most brilliant young arms in baseball. But his consistency remains a question mark heading into his first start of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, Gil could emulate prime Randy Johnson Friday night, and it wouldn\u2019t matter if New York continues swinging as it did over the past two games against the Athletics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Yankees were held to two runs on four hits on Wednesday before getting no-hit through seven innings in Thursday\u2019s 1\u20130 shutout loss \u2014 wasting an eight-inning gem from Ryan Weathers. \u00a0While Ben Rice has arguably been the best hitter in baseball, and Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger will heat up in due time, the club is desperate for production from their lifeless 6-through-9.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Rays<\/p>\n
Navigating Tampa Bay\u2019s lineup is a daunting assignment. The Rays rank seventh leaguewide in wRC+ (109) and own MLB\u2019s lowest strikeout rate (18.3%). Their offensive surge has been driven by scorching starts from Jonathan Aranda, Yandy Diaz, and Chandler Simpson, each posting an OPS north of .860. And once Junior Caminero finds his groove, this group becomes even more dangerous.<\/p>\n
But the Rays have struggled immensely on the other side of the ball, their pitching staff sitting in MLB\u2019s bottom three for ERA (28th), HR\/9 (28th), and left-on-base percentage (30th). Compounding the issue, Wednesday\u2019s 6-2 loss to the Cubs was catalyzed by three defensive errors \u2014 the third time this season that Tampa Bay has committed that many errors in a game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The club will look to correct those issues Friday night when veteran southpaw Steven Matz makes his third start of the season. The New York native rebounded from a shaky first outing, spinning six innings of one-run ball with eight strikeouts in Saturday\u2019s win over the Twins. But while he continues to attack hitters, his sinker has lost nearly two mph of zip from last season \u2014 making it harder for him to avoid loud contact early on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yankees vs. Rays Pick, Best Bet<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s opener in Tampa Bay sets up for a slugfest. New York\u2019s sleeping giant of an offense won\u2019t stay quiet for long, and this is a prime spot to erupt against a meatball-throwing lefty backed by a shaky defense. Meanwhile, the volatile Gil could struggle to contain a red-hot Rays lineup, especially with a Caminero breakout looming. Expect fireworks in St. Pete.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Best Bet: Game Total Over 8 Runs (-119)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cooper Albers previews Friday\u2019s MLB game between the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[5,4,1690,62,2548,2547,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-672678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-yankees","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkyankees","14":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116382019958793921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}