Rays slugger Carlos Pena admitted he didn’t have a book on Phil Coke, the young Yankees reliever whom he faced in the 10th inning of a tied game Wednesday night.He has a memorable first chapter now.
Pena drove a 1-0 pitch from Coke just over the right-field wall for his first hit of the game, giving Tampa Bay a soggy 4-3 victory over New York.
“I think it was a fastball away,” Pena said of his major league-leading 12th home run. “He probably put it where he wanted it. I was glad I was able to put a barrel on it.”
The deciding homer came two innings after the Yankee’s Mark Teixeira hit a tying double and sent them to their fourth straight loss. Grant Balfour (1-0) stranded runners on second and third to end the ninth, and Troy Percival worked around a one-out double to Johnny Damon for his fifth save.
“They had Damon on third and one out and we were able to hold them down. Percival has been there before,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “I’ve always liked to win in extra innings on the road. We were able to do that a lot last year.”
Stuck in a season-long slump, Teixeira hit a three-run double with two outs in the eighth to make it 3-all. But with one out in the 10th, he stranded a runner at third with a shallow fly ball and slammed his helmet several times in the dugout.
“I’ve got to get that runner home,” Teixeira said. “I tried to hit a fly ball and I popped it up a little bit. Little things.”
Evan Longoria, Akinori Iwamura and Dioner Navarro also drove in runs for the Rays, who are on the first leg of a three-stop, seven-game road trip.
It was perhaps fitting that after going the entire game without a home run, it would ultimately end on one. There have now been 39 homers hit through 12 games at the new Yankee Stadium, many of them over a right-field wall that measures just 314 feet down the line.
“I don’t have a book on him,” Pena said of Coke (1-2), who had not allowed an earned run his last 10 outings. “I was just trying to focus myself and stay calm in the box.”
Only a few thousand fans were left to see it after a 28-minute rain delay sent most of an already meager crowd home midway through the eighth inning. The rain held off until the final out, when it began falling heavily once again.
“It’s a tough loss. No loss is enjoyable, but this is a tough loss,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “Coke made one mistake. He got too much of the plate.”
The game was an entertaining pitcher’s duel most of the way, with the defending American League champs scratching out a 3-0 lead off A.J. Burnett.
Rays starter Andy Sonnanstine shut out the Yankees until the eighth, when Ramiro Pena and Jose Molina reached on hits. After Damon drew a two-out walk, Teixeira roped his tying double off J.P. Howell as a light rain suddenly turned into a downpour.
“It gave us a lift for a little while,” Teixeira said. “We just found another way to lose.”
The Rays took the lead in the third, when B.J. Upton singled and stole second. He moved up on a fly ball and trotted home on Longoria’s double. Tampa Bay added two more in the sixth on Iwamura’s sacrifice fly and Navarro’s two-out single.
The Rays got help from their speed on the bases. Carl Crawford had one of their three steals, joining Bert Campaneris, Rickey Henderson and Corey Patterson as the only players since 1954 to steal a base in nine straight games. Crawford is perfect in 20 tries.
"Overall, it was a great game," Maddon said. "A lot of great things happened."
Xtra, xtra: Yankees 3B Alex Rodriguez (hip surgery) went 1 for 5 in an extended spring training game. He's expected to play six innings of an intrasquad game Thursday and could be back when the Yankees open a three-game series Friday at Baltimore. Henderson stole a base in at least nine straight games three different times. Yankees OF Nick Swisher was ejected in the seventh for arguing strikes (Associated Press - Sports).
