Yankees roll over Rays 11-4

(Originally posted by Baseball Digest)

The New York Yankees hit four home runs and each starter had at least one hit in their 11-4 victory of the Tampa Bay Rays Monday night at Tropicana Field.

Five of the Yankees’ starters had multi-hit games and starter A.J. Burnett gave up one run (zero earned) over seven innings, striking out five and walking two.

The Yankees scored three runs in the second inning of James Shields.  Jorge Posada (double), Robinson Cano (triple) and Nick Swisher (groundout) had the RBI.  They would add two more runs in the sixth inning on back-to-back solo home runs by Cano and Swisher.  Swisher’s home run was his first of two on the night.  The shots gave the Yankees a 5-0 lead.

Tampa got a run back, as the Yankees traded a double play for a run.

Up 5-1, Alex Rodriguez, on his 34th birthday, hit a two-run double.

The 7-1 lead seemed comfortable, but reliever Jonathan Albaladejo, who was called up when Brett Gardner was placed on the disabled list, made things interesting in the bottom of the eighth.  Carl Crawford hit a sacrifice fly and Ben Zobrist hit an RBI single to cut the Yankees’ lead to 7-3.

However, the Yankees hit two more home runs in the top of the ninth against Brian Shouse to put the game out of reach.  Swisher hit his second home run of the game and Johnny Damon added a three-run home run to give the team an 11-3 lead.  Pat Burrell hit a solo home run in the ninth to reach the final score of 11-4.

The Yankees are now 61-38 and remain 2.5 games ahead of the Boston Red Sox in the AL East.