Glasnow puts 'effective' in 'effectively wild'

ST. PETERSBURG -- Tyler Glasnow wasn’t at his best Saturday afternoon. His command came and went, leading to seven three-ball counts against the 21 batters he faced. He didn’t have his typical swing-and-miss stuff.

But even in an outing that felt like “kind of a grind,” as Glasnow put it, he was practically unhittable.

Glasnow carried a no-hitter through 5 1/3 innings and permitted just one hit over six in the Rays’ 3-0 win against the Yankees at Tropicana Field, a combined two-hitter in which Glasnow and three relievers struck out 10 batters. Tampa Bay’s 12th shutout secured the club’s third season series victory over the Yankees in the past four years and continued a hot stretch in which the club has won 17 of 26 games. The Rays remained three games behind the first-place Orioles in the American League East.

In a way, Glasnow said, his lack of control may have worked in his favor against the Yankees.

“I think it was more of, like, an effectively wild game,” Glasnow said. “I would miss my spot, throw a strike and throw it somewhere near someone's head. It just kind of felt all over the place.”

On the surface, it was more of the same for Glasnow. The big right-hander has pitched at least six innings in a career-best seven straight starts dating back to July 15. He is 5-3 with a 2.35 ERA and 81 strikeouts in 61 1/3 innings over his past 10 starts, and he’s 5-0 with a 2.25 ERA in his past eight starts against the Yankees, including his postseason outings in 2020.

But it was apparent early on, even as he racked up out after out, that Glasnow’s command wasn’t quite as crisp as it had been lately.

“I think those starts, honestly, if you can keep it around the zone, are the good ones -- just because, like, there's no approach a hitter can get [into],” Glasnow said. “I think it's just hard to get an approach, so I think there's a lot of uncomfortable at-bats.”

That Glasnow was able to not just survive Saturday’s outing but totally shut down the Yankees reflected his evolution into an ace.

“There were a lot of back-and-forth counts, but when he needed to make pitches, he did pretty much his entire outing,” manager Kevin Cash said. “To go through that lineup with giving up one hit, that's really, really impressive.”

Unable to consistently trust his fastball and mostly staying away from his curveball, Glasnow leaned on the slider he developed heading into the 2021 season -- “My most consistent pitch by far,” he said -- to navigate his way through New York’s lineup. He threw the slider 41 times, accounting for 48 percent of his 85 pitches in the game, and reset his aim toward the middle of the strike zone.

“I think when days like this happen, like if my command is bad and I try to aim down the middle, chances are I'm not going to throw it down the middle,” Glasnow said. “I'll hit a corner or something like that. So that was honestly just the philosophy today.”

It worked. The Yankees managed only a pair of walks through Glasnow’s first five innings, and he picked up his fourth and final strikeout to begin the sixth. Up came DJ LeMahieu, who lined a 1-1 slider to center field for New York’s first hit of the game.

“I didn't even think they were going to get a hit there for a minute,” Rays outfielder Josh Lowe said. “When he's doing that, we have a really, really good chance to win ballgames.”

Glasnow knew he had a no-hit bid going, but he wasn’t too concerned about losing it.

“I kind of knew early on I wasn't going to throw nine innings, so I just didn't really think about it,” Glasnow said. “Each inning, I was like, 'Oh yeah, no hits.' And then LeMahieu got the hit and then, yeah, I was aware.”

The Rays gave Glasnow an early lead against Yankees starter Clarke Schmidt, who pitched 6 2/3 strong innings. Isaac Paredes reached on an error by third baseman Isiah Kiner-Falefa to begin the second, moved to third on Luke Raley’s double to right and scored on a sacrifice fly by Harold Ramírez. Jonathan Aranda made it a 2-0 game with another sac fly to center, and Tampa Bay tacked on another run in the third on back-to-back doubles by Randy Arozarena and Lowe.

Glasnow gave way to relievers Robert Stephenson, Jason Adam and Pete Fairbanks, who combined to allow just one hit while striking out six. Fairbanks converted his 17th save, including his 14th in a row.

“All three of those guys, it really seems like here as of late they've been on a really impressive run,” Cash said. “Good spot for the bullpen to be in right now.”