Maybe this isn't so much of a rivalry after all.
The Rays on Wednesday beat the Yankees for the fifth time in six tries their season, rallying for a tense 4-2 victory in New York.
On Monday, the Rays dealt the Yankees their first home loss after they had opened the season with 10 straight wins. On Wednesday, they added another notch, snapping the Yankees streak of 27 consecutive series without a loss, going 24-0-3 since April of 2019.
And they won a game started by ace Gerrit Cole, though he got no-decision, so his 20-game regular-season winning streak (now over 28 starts) remained intact.
The win improved the Rays to 16-9 and moved them within a half-game of the American League East-leading Yankees, who are 16-8 _ 1-5 against the Rays, 15-3 against everyone else.
After letting a 2-0 lead get away, Tampa Bay rallied for two runs in the eighth to go up 4-2 on run-scoring hits by pinch-hitter Mike Brosseau and shortstop Willy Adames.
Brosseau delivered a single to center off Zach Britton, scoring Brandon Lowe, who had walked, and sending Jose Martinez, who reached on a fielder's choice, to third. Adames, swinging on a 3-0 sinker, followed with a single to right, scoring Martinez.
Nick Anderson worked a dominant eighth for the Rays. Then they survived an adventurous ninth. Chaz Roe started with two walks, then got Brett Gardner on a fly to center. Jalen Beeks came on to strike out Miguel Andujar and, after a wild pitch that moved the runners to third and second, he got Thairo Estrada to end it.
The Rays took an early 2-0 lead off Cole.
Ji-Man Choi, who earlier in the day said he would abandon switch-hitting to work on improving his lefty swing, homered on a 2-1 changeup with one out in the second.
An inning later, Mike Zunino turned around a 98 mph fastball and sent it on a 428-foot ride, with 107.5 mph exit velocity, over the centerfield fence.
Tyler Glasnow, coming off what the Rays called an encouraging finish to an inconsistent outing last Thursday in Boston, held the lead into the sixth.
Glasnow allowed one run in the third, on a two-out, full-count homer by Luke Voit, and another in the sixth, when Aaron Hicks tripled on a ball that bounced away from Manuel Margot and later scored on a sac fly.
Still, it seemed a step forward for Glasnow, who allowed only those two hits over a season-high 5 2/3 innings, walking three and striking out eight, while throwing 88 pitches (51 for strikes).
Had the Rays hung on to beat Cole, it would have been headline news.
He hadn't lost a regular-season game since May 22, 2019, pitching for the Astros against the White Sox. His 20-game winning streak (over 27 starts) is the third longest in major-league history, behind Carl Hubbell's 24-game run in 1936-37 and Elroy Face's 22-game run in 1958-59.
Going back to last year's playoffs, the Rays were facing Cole for the fourth time, having lost the first three.
