Sabathia shouts insults at Rays, Yanks rally to win
CC Sabathia shouted salty insults at the Tampa Bay Rays and said he tried to hit one of their batters.
A little while later, it was Gio Urshela who had the last word for the New York Yankees.
Urshela's single capped a three-run rally in the bottom of the ninth inning, and the surging Yankees leapfrogged Tampa Bay into first place in the AL East with a rousing 4-3 victory Friday night.
"When Gio came up, I said: 'Turn off the lights,'" Sabathia recalled.
Urshela, subbing spectacularly for injured third baseman Miguel Andujar, sent a two-out drive over Kevin Kiermaier's head in deep right-center field for his first walk-off hit.
"The kid's just been unbelievable, and every time there's a big situation, he always comes through," teammate Luke Voit said.
"He's been the energy of this team so far," Sabathia said.
Voit homered on the first pitch from Jose Alvarado (0-3) to make it 3-2. New York tied it when pinch-runner Thairo Estrada scored on a bases-loaded wild pitch by Alvarado, who entered with a 1.04 ERA.
Urshela and Voit had three hits apiece. Kendrys Morales clubbed an early solo shot for his first home run since joining the Yankees on Wednesday following a trade from Oakland.
Willy Adames homered off Sabathia, who pitched six strong innings, and rookie Brandon Lowe hit a tiebreaking double against Chad Green with two outs in the eighth. Tampa Bay added another run on shortstop Gleyber Torres' throwing error before rain caused a 35-minute delay in the bottom of the inning.
Torres doubled on the 10th pitch of his at-bat in the ninth to put runners at second and third with one out.
"There's no excuse for what happened," Alvarado said through a translator. "They must have been sitting on my fastball."
Jonathan Holder (3-1) struck out two in a perfect inning.cheap nfl nike jerseys from china
With their fourth straight victory and ninth in 11 games, the injury-ravaged Yankees took over the division lead for the first time since a March 30 loss.cheap nike nfl jerseys free shipping
"Night in and night out, I mean, it gets better and better. It's crazy," Voit said.
Tampa Bay had been alone in first place since the end of games on March 31.
The unfriendly rivals play twice more this weekend after New York took two of three from the Rays last weekend at Tropicana Field.
"Anytime you get walked off, it's tough," Rays manager Kevin Cash said. "We did a lot of things good. We just came up short."
Sabathia threw three inside pitches to Austin Meadows, including one right near the knees, before walking him with two outs and nobody on in the fifth. As he was coming off the field, a camera caught Sabathia appearing to tell teammates he "was definitely trying to hit" Meadows.
"I really didn't think anything of it, honestly," Meadows said. "He didn't hit me. So all good there."
After striking out Lowe with his final pitch in the sixth, the big lefty cursed and yelled a nasty phrase in the Rays' direction.
