MLB
Archer lifts Rays to win
Pitch by pitch, Chris Archer set the tone for what he and the Tampa Bay Rays hope will be a bounce-back year.
Not such a good start for Masahiro Tanaka and the New York Yankees.
Archer pitched seven solid innings, and the Rays roughed up Tanaka on the way to beating New York, 7-3, in the first game of the new Major League Baseball season Sunday in St. Petersburg, Fla.
“We didn’t play perfect, but we played well enough to win,” Archer said. “We scored a lot of runs and made some nice defensive plays. It’s all about winning, and we did that.”
And what the Rays didn’t do a lot of last season, when they sank to the bottom of the American League East with their worst finish (68-94) since 2007.
New York lost on Opening Day for the sixth consecutive year, with Tanaka matching the shortest start ever by a Yankees pitcher in an opener.
“It happens. He’s human,” Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild said. “He just didn’t command anything. He usually self corrects real well. But today, he tried a few things and it just didn’t work.”
Evan Longoria and Logan Morrison homered and drove in three runs apiece before an announced sellout crowd of 31,042 at Tropicana Field. Tanaka, who had baseball’s lowest ERA in spring training, was tagged for a career-worst seven earned runs in 2
A first-time All-Star in 2015 who lost an AL-leading 19 times last season, Archer (1-0) limited New York to two runs and seven hits. He narrowly escaped a bases-loaded jam in the seventh to turn a five-run lead over to a revamped bullpen.
Leadoff man Corey Dickerson singled in the Tampa Bay first for the first hit of the season and later scored on Longoria’s sacrifice fly as part of a three-run inning. Longoria connected for a two-run drive in the second.
Aaron Judge had a RBI double, while Starlin Castro and Chase Headley each had three hits for the Yankees.
Tanaka (0-1) made his third consecutive Opening Day start for the Yankees, and had been 6-0 with a 2.82 ERA in eight career starts against Tampa Bay. He gave up eight hits and two walks.
Derailed by a dreadful bullpen last year, the Giants started this season the same way — even after trying to fix the problem by bringing in Melancon on a $62 million, four-year contract. They wasted a record-breaking performance by ace Madison Bumgarner, who retired his first 16 batters and became the first pitcher to hit two home runs on Opening Day.
Arizona got a double and three singles after Melancon (0-1) retired his first two batters in the ninth. A.J. Pollock singled in the tying run and Owings dumped a base hit into right field to end it.
That led to an offseason overhaul in the bullpen, headlined by the arrival of Melancon as a free agent. He saved 98 games over the past two seasons, most in the majors.
New Diamondbacks closer Fernando Rodney (1-0) gave up a run in a shaky ninth but got the victory.
San Francisco took a 5-4 lead when Joe Panik led off the ninth with a triple and scored on pinch-hitter Conor Gillaspie’s sacrifice fly.
Bumgarner struck out 11 with no walks in seven innings. He gave up three runs on six hits and became the first Giants pitcher to go deep twice in one game since Jim Gott in 1985.
Jose Martinez sparked the winning rally with a pinch-hit double against Mike Montgomery, who closed out Chicago's World Series championship in November. Yadier Molina then was awarded the first no-pitch intentional walk in major league history, part of baseball's offseason rule changes designed to speed up the game.
With two outs and the bases loaded, Grichuk lined a 1-2 pitch into the gap in left-center for his second career game-ending hit.
The Cardinals appeared set for a tidy 3-0 win before the Cubs rallied in the ninth. Ben Zobrist was hit by a pitch from Seung-hwan Oh and Jason Heyward singled before Willson Contreras hit a drive to left for a tying homer.
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