{"id":820171,"date":"2026-10-03T00:57:43","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T00:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/820171\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T00:57:43","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T00:57:43","slug":"the-yankees-are-in-great-shape-against-pesky-rays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/820171\/","title":{"rendered":"The Yankees are in great shape against pesky Rays"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 If the Yankees can keep their stuff together (i.e. they don\u2019t screw up bunt plays and other baseball nuances), it says here they get past this dynamic Rays team. And if the Yankees can do that, they have the next best thing to a bye on their path to the World Series: an American League Central opponent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Yankees rolled past the Red Sox<\/a> like they were playing a bunch of computer nerds, which in effect they may have been (see comments from Boston slugger Willson Contreras<\/a>). Most vitally, the Yankees\u2019 vaunted rotation is as sound and superb as any going.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Yankees are in such fine pitching shape they\u2019re bypassing an opportunity in Game 1 of the AL Division Series here to employ the red-hot Carlos Rod\u00f3n, the AL\u2019s second-hottest starter behind Yankees ace Cam Schlittler, in place of future Hall of Famer Gerrit Cole<\/a>. I\u2019d have gone with Rod\u00f3n and his revitalized slider myself, but then, I don\u2019t have to explain my opinions to the Cooperstown-bound Cole.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nothing against Cole (except the nine homers he\u2019s allowed in his last four starts), but Rod\u00f3n\u2019s ERA since returning is 1.89 and his batting average against is an MLB-best .146. Plus, the Rays aren\u2019t nearly as great against lefties (.679 OPS vs. .746 vs. righties), and Rod\u00f3n completely shut them down (two hits, eight strikeouts) over eight innings 10 days ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 If the Yankees can keep their stuff together (i.e. they don\u2019t screw up bunt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,4,2305,62,297,185,430,428,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":["post-820171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-rays","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-sports-plus","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117374264526820359","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820171","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=820171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}