NEW YORK — Winning a game started by Yankees ace Gerrit Cole is a big deal for the Rays, which they did Thursday afternoon, rebounding from back-to-back losses to post a 9-2 victory.
Ryan Yarbrough winning a game he started for the Rays was the bigger accomplishment, which he did for the first time since Aug. 11, 2019, with 24 starts in between.
And even bigger than that, Yarbrough finished what he started, marking the Rays’ first complete game since Matt Andriese on May 14, 2016, ending a major-league-record streak of 731 games in between. Coincidentally, Yarbrough had come the closest, working 8-2/3 innings in that 2019 win.
Held to three runs in each of the first three games of the series and going a concerning 3-for-31 with runners in scoring position, the Rays (36-22) broke out a bit on Thursday, chasing Cole with five runs in five innings.
Austin Meadows led the way, again, with five RBIs on the day, hitting a two-run homer — his team-leading 14th, in the fourth off Cole — and a bases-clearing double in the seventh.
The Yankees took a 1-0 lead when Brett Gardner homered off Yarbrough in the third. Meadows homered in the fourth to put the Rays up 2-1.
They added three more in the fifth to end Cole’s day. A leadoff walk by Mike Zunino and an infield single by Kevin Kiermaier, thanks to a tag-avoiding slide going into first, set them up.
Brandon Lowe, who had his first two-hit game since May 21, singled in a run and moved to second when rightfielder Clint Frazier overthrew the cutoff man. That mattered, because Yandy Diaz followed with a single that scored two and extended the lead to 5-1.
Yarbrough earned the win, allowing two solo homers over the nine innings, and six hits overall, on 113 pitches. His last win as a starter was at Seattle in the Aug. 11, 2019 game, when he worked 8-2/3 innings in a 1-0 Rays win.
