{"id":15449,"date":"2011-05-17T12:30:23","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T17:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15449"},"modified":"2011-05-17T09:40:02","modified_gmt":"2011-05-17T14:40:02","slug":"new-york-yankees-at-tampa-bay-rays-al-east-handicapping-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/new-york-yankees-at-tampa-bay-rays-al-east-handicapping-predictions-15449\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Yankees at Tampa Bay Rays AL East Handicapping Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Rays currently lead the American League East standings and are set to host the New York Yankees in the final game of their series at Tropicana Field<\/p>\n

New York Yankees at Tampa Bay Rays<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Tampa Bay SP James Shields is enjoying a tremendous start to the 2011 season<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New York has now dropped a season-high six straight games after falling 6-5 to Tampa Bay at Tropicana Field last night.\u00a0 \u201cLast year\u2019s gone, man,\u201d pitcher A.J. Burnett commented.\u00a0 \u201cWe need to turn the page about talking about last year.\u00a0 This is this year.\u201d \u00a0 The Yankees are now three games behind the Rays in the American League East standings, matching the furthest they have been out of first all season.\u00a0 The club will also be playing just its 15th road game of the year (7-8), which is the fewest for any team in the Majors.\u00a0 New York is 15-13 versus right-handed starters this year and 154-99 over the last three campaigns.<\/p>\n

Yankees starting pitcher Ivan Nova is an even 3-3 with a 4.70 ERA in eight appearances (seven starts) this season and is coming off a forgettable appearance.\u00a0 He suffered an 11-5 home loss to the Royals, giving up eight runs (four earned) and 10 hits in just three innings of work.\u00a0 Nova came into that particular start on a two-game winning streak, with victories over the Blue Jays and Rangers.\u00a0 The right-hander has a 1-1 mark and 3.65 ERA in three road appearances (two starts), as opponents are hitting just .229 against him.\u00a0 In two career starts versus the Rays, he has yet to record a decision, while giving up nine runs (eight earned) and nine hits over 10 1\/3 frames.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay picked up its largest come-from-behind victory this season Monday night and also moved its record to 23-9 since April 11.\u00a0 Entering the game, the Rays had started the season by going 22 games at home without scoring more than five runs in a game, leaving the club four games short of the modern record of 26 set by the Brooklyn Superbas in 1908.\u00a0 \u201cIt is good because being a historian, I was really concerned about our attempt to surpass the Superbas,\u201d said Rays manager Joe Maddon.\u00a0 The club came into the series opener averaging just 2.77 runs per game at Tropicana Field compared to 6.17 on the road.\u00a0 Tampa Bay is 16-8 in night games this year.<\/p>\n

Rays starting pitcher James Shields is enjoying a fantastic start of his season, coming in with a 4-1 record and 2.08 ERA in eight starts.\u00a0 Tampa Bay has won seven straight games with him on the hill since dropping his season debut at home versus Baltimore.\u00a0 The right-hander enters with a 1-1 mark and 1.72 ERA in four starts at Tropicana Field, while not allowing a home run in 31 1\/3 innings.\u00a0 In 15 career outings versus the Yankees, Shields has posted a dismal 3-8 record and 4.91 ERA, including a 2-1 mark and 3.35 ERA in six starts last year.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Yankees due to their 4-0 record in Nova\u2019s last four road starts, while the Rays are 4-11 in Shields last 15 starts in the series<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Rays currently lead the American League East standings and are set to host the New York Yankees in the final game of their series at Tropicana Field New York Yankees at Tampa Bay Rays New York has now dropped a season-high six straight games after falling 6-5 to Tampa Bay at Tropicana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[2801,86,149,150,1574],"class_list":["post-15449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-ivan-nova","tag-james-shields","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tropicana-field"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15449"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15451,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15449\/revisions\/15451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}