Rays Clinch AL East Title With Rout Of Yankees
The Tampa Bay Rays clinched the American League East championship with a 6-1 victory over the New York Yankees in the second game of a day-night doubleheader on Tuesday. Drew Rasmussen allowed one hit over 6 2/3 innings and Yandy Diaz drove in four runs on two two-run singles as Tampa Bay secured its fifth division title.
Tampa Bay claimed the AL East for the first time since 2021, beating that team's pace by three days for the earliest division clincher in franchise history. The Rays previously won the division in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, in 2010 and in 2008, when the club reached the World Series and posted its first winning season. The Rays improved to 96-61, opening a six-game lead over the second-place Yankees, who fell to 90-67 with five games remaining. Tampa Bay secures the No. 1 seed and home-field advantage throughout the American League playoffs and sits two games behind the Milwaukee Brewers for the best overall record in the majors. greyhoundbet
Tampa Bay has held first place in the division since June 27, spending 128 days atop the standings. The Yankees played much of the season without Aaron Judge, who appeared in only 66 games because of a fractured right rib and a sore right calf - an injury likely to keep him out of next week's best-of-three Wild Card Series. The Rays first took the division lead on April 14 following a win over the Chicago White Sox, lost it despite winning 13 of 18 games, then reclaimed first place on May 10 with a win at Boston and held it the rest of the way apart from a stretch in mid-June. Rasmussen, who underwent elbow surgery in 2023, credited the team's cohesion for the turnaround after a slow April. Diaz called it a hard-fought achievement in what he described as a consistently competitive division, speaking through a translator after the win at Yankee Stadium.Rasmussen retired the first 18 Yankees he faced before Heliot Ramos doubled to open the seventh inning. He departed after walking Jazz Chisholm Jr., and reliever Kevin Kelly allowed a run-scoring single to rookie George Lombard Jr. before closing out the frame. Tampa Bay broke the game open with a three-run seventh, aided by a Taylor Walls bunt single and a Diaz single to center, then added the AL leader's 175th hit on another two-run single in the ninth.
The title comes in Tampa Bay's first season back at Tropicana Field, where the club went 55-26 at home after finishing 77-85 last year while playing at Steinbrenner Field, the Yankees' spring training facility, following storm damage to the Trop's roof during Hurricane Milton in October 2024. The Rays also recently secured financing approval for a new stadium in Tampa, projected to open in 2029. Team president of baseball operations Erik Neander called the achievement especially meaningful given the franchise's recent upheaval. Tampa Bay now turns its attention to the postseason, where it will open as the AL's top seed with home-field advantage secured throughout the playoffs.
