Yankees vs. Rays: Four things to know, series prediction as AL East rivals meet at Tropicana Field

On Friday night, the AL East rival New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays open a three-game series at Tropicana Field. It is their first meeting of the season and the two clubs enter the weekend in very different positions. The Rays began the season with a modern record-tying 13-game winning streak and are now only the third team in the modern era to win 27 of their first 32 games. The Yankees have yet to win more than two games in a row.

Here are the AL East standings as of Friday morning:

Needless to say, this series is far more important to the last-place Yankees. Even though it's only May, this series might be their last best chance to keep their AL East title hopes alive. They're in baseball's toughest division and have already exhausted their margin of error. The Rays could bury the Yankees with a sweep this weekend.

"Don't count us out," Yankees GM Brian Cashman said earlier this week. "Don't give up on us. We got a good group of people player-wise, staff-wise, support staff-wise. It's a championship-caliber operation."

Here are the details for this week's Yankees vs. Rays series at Tropicana Field. Select games can be streamed on fuboTV (try for free).

Friday, May 5

6:40 p.m. ET

RHP Yonny Chirinos (1-0, 0.64 ERA) vs. RHP Jhony Brito (2-3, 5.56 ERA)

YES, Bally Sports Sun

Saturday, May 5

4:10 p.m. ET

RHP Drew Rasmussen (3-2, 3.66 ERA) vs. RHP Domingo Germán (2-2, 4.46 ERA)

YES, Bally Sports Sun

Sunday, May 6

1:40 p.m. ET

LHP Josh Fleming (0-0, 3.18 ERA) vs. RHP Gerrit Cole (5-0, 1.35 ERA)

YES, Bally Sports Sun

The Rays will use righty Yonny Chirinos as a true starter on Friday rather than use an opener in front of him, while lefty Josh Fleming's availability on Sunday is a bit uncertain. He took a comebacker to the foot in his most recent appearance and he is hopeful the discomfort will subside in time for Sunday's game. If not, Sunday could be a straight bullpen game for Tampa. As for the Yankees, southpaw Nestor Cortes was originally scheduled to start this series, though he came down with strep throat earlier this week. The Yankees had to push his next start back to Monday. 

With that settled, here are four things to know heading into this weekend's Yankees vs. Rays series, plus a prediction thrown in for good measure, because why not?

1. These teams don't like each other

The personnel has changed but the Yankees and Rays have a history of bad blood that dates back to at least 2017. It continued last September when the benches cleared after Josh Donaldson had to duck out of the way of a Shawn Armstrong fastball. Donaldson and Rays lefty Jeffrey Springs had words earlier in the series as well.

Donaldson (hamstring) and Springs (Tommy John surgery) are on the injured list, so there won't be carryover involving those two this weekend. But, with these teams, there always seems to be something. They don't like each other, and with the Yankees having a frustrating start to the season, things could boil over at some point. It's happened before with these clubs.

2. Both teams hit a lot of solo homers

This is a bit unusual. The Rays lead baseball with 67 home runs (the Los Angeles Dodgers are a distant second with 54) and the Yankees rank tenth with 39 homers. While it is unusual for the Rays to outhomer the Yankees, that's not what I'm referring to here. Both teams rank near the top of the league in the rate of solo homers. Here's the leaderboard:

Huh. I'm not sure what to make of this. In terms of batting average and on-base percentage, the Yankees and Rays both perform better when men on base than with the bases empty, though the slug with runners on hasn't been there for either team. I suspect this is early season small sample size noise rather than the start of a season-long trend. Still a bit unusual though.

3. Who's hot, who's not

The season is a little more than a month old now and we're approaching the point where early hot streaks can be considered real breakouts and slow starts might be the sign of a down season. That said, it's still a game of peaks and valleys, and some players are in a better groove at the plate than others right now. 

With that in mind, here are three Yankees who have led the charge offensively the last 14 days:

Hardly an impressive list, but such is the state of the offense. The Yankees are hitting .228/.297/.381 this season and .219/.287/.328 in their last 16 games. New York has scored no more than three runs in 16 of their 32 games, or exactly half. This is not a typical Yankees offense. They usually rank near the top of the league in runs scored, but not this year. Not even close.

Harrison Bader came back earlier this week and Aaron Judge is expected to return from his minor hip issue early next week. There is not much help coming after that. Giancarlo Stanton is weeks away from coming back from his hamstring injury, and the Yankees have already called up Volpe and Oswald Peraza, their top prospects. What you see is what you're going to get from this team. 

Now here are three Rays players who have crushed the ball over the last 14 days:

The three guys who are supposed to lead the way are leading the way. Tampa is also getting boffo production from Isaac Paredes (.306/.375/.500 the last two weeks) and Harold Ramírez (.313/.405/.688). Even part-timers like Luke Raley (four homers in the last two weeks) have contributed. Pretty much everything is working for the Rays. Has been since Opening Day.

4. They'll see each again soon

The Yankees and Rays will play three games this weekend, then go their separate ways for a few days (the Rays to Baltimore, the Yankees back home to play the Oakland Athletics), then meet up again next weekend at Yankee Stadium for a four-game series. These clubs will play each other seven times in their next 10 games. Here is their season series schedule:

As a reminder, division rivals will play only 13 times under the MLB's new balanced schedule, not 19, so the Yankees and Rays are playing more than half their season series these next two weekends. That's bad news for a depleted Yankees team that needs as many head-to-head matchups as it can get to gain ground in the standings.

Prediction

The Rays are playing so well and the Yankees have been so mediocre -- and are so depleted by injuries -- that I have a hard time picking against Tampa this series. I'll say the Rays win two of three. They take Friday's and Saturday's games in convincing fashion before the Yankees salvage the finale with a one-run win behind Cole on Sunday.

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