{"id":280762,"date":"2026-05-22T12:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T12:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/280762\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T12:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T12:52:11","slug":"new-york-yankees-vs-tampa-bay-rays-series-preview-probable-pitchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/280762\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Yankees vs. Tampa Bay Rays: Series preview, probable pitchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday saw the Yankees wrap up a four-game set against the Blue Jays with a loss, earning a series split. The last two games were especially frustrating, with the Yankees scoring just one total run between them. However, this would be a bad time for them to them to dwell on those woes. Now comes another AL East matchup, one that has some stakes, despite it still only being May.<\/p>\n

Somewhat out of nowhere, the Rays have been on fire to start 2026, leading the American League in wins at this stage of the season. While that does mean they also lead the AL East, the Yankees aren\u2019t that far behind. A series sweep could get the Yankees with a game. On the flipside, a Rays sweep would leave the Yankees back an amount that is far from impossible to claw back, especially since it\u2019s only May, but it wouldn\u2019t be ideal. You can\u2019t call any series at this stage of a year a \u201cmust win,\u201d but the Yankees certainly could use a couple victories.<\/p>\n

Before the action gets going tonight, here\u2019s a look at the probable pitching matchups for this weekend.<\/p>\n

Friday: Gerrit Cole vs. Nick Martinez (7:05 pm ET)<\/p>\n

For the first time in a year and a half, we will get to see Gerrit Cole pitch in a game that counts tonight. After missing all of last season and the first couple months of this one, Cole will return in the series opener after recovering from Tommy John surgery. There\u2019s only so much that you can read into minor league rehab starts, but Cole looked sharp in his most recent, even hitting 99 mph with his fastball<\/a>. More than anything, it\u2019ll just be nice to have him back.<\/p>\n

Martinez has been around for a while now, but he\u2019s already on the verge of having his best career MLB season. With a 1.51 ERA and a 3.26 FIP, Martinez is up to 2.3 rWAR and 1.3 fWAR, both of which have him well on pace to set new career highs. One thing that\u2019s been especially notable about his season so far is that his Left on Base Percentage is a ridiculous 91.1%. Last year\u2019s leaders in that stat ended up in the mid to low 80s \u2014 and are a who\u2019s who of today\u2019s pitching \u2014 so it\u2019s likely that he\u2019ll regress eventually, but can the Yankees cause any of that tonight?<\/p>\n

Saturday: TBD vs. Drew Rasmussen (1:35 pm ET)<\/p>\n

The Yankees called up Elmer Rodr\u00edguez in the aftermath of Max Fried\u2019s injury, but returned him back to the minors after that start. While Cole coming back has filled in that slot, the Yankees haven\u2019t confirmed precisely what they\u2019re going to do for the reason of this weekend. Ryan Weathers would be on normal rest for this game, so we can presume they\u2019ll just stick with the order they\u2019ve been in, but we shall see.<\/p>\n

This is going to be a theme for the Rays\u2019 pitchers in this series, but Rasmussen has gotten off to a nice start to 2026. He\u2019s put up a 3.19 ERA over his nine starts so far this year. According to the stat Game Score, the best start of his this year came against the Yankees back on April 12th. That day, he held the Yankees to no runs and just one hit in six innings.<\/p>\n

Sunday: TBD vs. Shane McClanahan (1:35 PM ET)<\/p>\n

Likewise with Saturday, the Yankees haven\u2019t announced anything for Sunday. Again like Weathers, Will Warren would be on normal rest for the series finale, the Yankees just haven\u2019t confirmed anything at time of writing.<\/p>\n

The 2026 season has marked McClanahan\u2019s return to the majors after missing all of the last two with Tommy John surgery and then further injuries. He\u2019s another that has been good up to this point, with a 2.82 ERA and a 2.73 FIP. In his most recent start, the Orioles did get him to four runs in five innings, but in the four starts prior to that, the two-time All-Star did not allow a run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thursday saw the Yankees wrap up a four-game set against the Blue Jays with a loss, earning a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136,101982],"class_list":["post-280762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-yankees-game-information"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}