NEW YORK _ By the sixth inning at Yankee Stadium, a sellout crowd was riding on every Michael Pineda pitch.
They were standing with two strikes when Pineda struck out Tim Beckham to end the sixth, which elicited a roar from the stands. And they cheered madly again as left fielder Brett Gardner raced toward the line to grab Kevin Kiermaier's slicing fly ball, the second out in the seventh.
"When Gardy caught that ball, that's the loudest I've heard it here in a long time," said Austin Romine, who had watched Pineda retire all 20 Rays to that point.
Pineda's bid for perfection ended one batter later, but it just brought the fans to their feet again in appreciation.
"They were so happy, and I'm happy too," Pineda said after the Yankees' otherwise perfect 8-1 victory in their home opener.
Until Evan Longoria's line drive double to left with two out in the seventh, "I thought he was going to throw a perfect game," said Chase Headley, who had one of the Yankees' three homers on a glorious, 76-degree afternoon.
Using a sweeping slider, more change-ups than usual and a well-spotted fastball to maximum effect, Pineda set down the first 20 Rays _ half of them on strikeouts.
"You're thinking it's going to be another special day here at the Stadium," said manager Joe Girardi, who caught David Cone's perfect game in 1999, the Yanks' last no-hitter. "I thought he had a shot."
Pineda threw just 93 total pitches and Girardi already figured if Pineda was at 100 pitches through eight innings with a perfect game "I would have sent him back out" for the ninth.
After Longoria's double, pitching coach Larry Rothschild made a quick trip to the mound and Pineda followed up by fanning Brad Miller _ his 11th and last strikeout of the day.
"The biggest thing was my location was really good today," said Pineda, who first became aware of his no-hit bid after the fourth inning. "Every inning, (I'm just) focused on getting outs quick, hitter by hitter. (I) focused on being aggressive."
Logan Morrison cut the lead to 3-1, belting a one-out solo homer in the eighth, which required video review. And after Chase Headley made a hit-saving, backhanded play on a Derek Norris grounder, Pineda was lifted and received another standing ovation upon his exit.
It was a complete turnaround for Pineda (1-1) after lasting just 3.2 innings against the Rays (5-3) at Tampa Bay last week _ his first 2017 start. On Monday, Pineda gave up just one run on two hits in 7 2/3 innings. He did not walk a batter.
Aaron Judge (fourth inning) and Headley (seventh) belted solo home runs off Rays right-hander Alex Cobb (1-1), who gave up four earned runs in 7 1/3 innings.
Jacoby Ellsbury's RBI double in the third scored Brett Gardner, who reached on a strikeout/wild pitch, giving the Yankees a 1-0 lead.
The Yankees (3-4) broke it open in a four-run eighth on Matt Holliday's RBI double, Chris Carter's RBI triple and Starlin Castro's two-run homer, his first of the season _ adding to the party atmosphere.
"The crowd was awesome. And Big Mike gave them a lot to cheer about," Gardner said. "When he's on, he's on. I think everybody could tell right from the get-go that it was going to be one of those (good) days. He was as good as I've seen him."
And Romine saw every pitch.
"I'm going to remember we were pretty close," Romine said of being on the receiving end of a near no-hitter. "There was a lot of emotion and that made it even more so."
