Rays notes: ‘That’s the Ray Way’

ST. PETERSBURG — Something at Tropicana Field on Tuesday night reminded Ben Zobrist of the good old days. It must have been the good pitching, the good defense and clutch hitting turned in by the Tampa Bay Rays in their 6-2 victory against the visiting New York Yankees.

“That’s the Ray Way,” Zobrist said. “We’ve done that in patches this year. If we can do that the rest of the year, it will be great.”

Scott Kazmir turned in his longest performance since June 6, 2008, when he pitched into the eighth inning for his first win since May 9, when he beat the Red Sox in Boston.

Just about everyone on defense made a big play at some point.

Offensively, the Rays were only 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, but they scored a run on a sacrifice fly, a throwing error, a triple by Carl Crawford, a home run by Evan Longoria and a double by B.J. Upton.

The lone hit with a runner in scoring position came when Jason Bartlett reached on a two-out infield single in the sixth inning. Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira knocked down Bartlett’s soft line drive, but Bartlett out-raced Teixeira to the bag. Gabe Kapler, who stretched a single to a double and moved to third when Dioner Navarro bounced out to second base, scored on the play.

Had Bartlett not hustled down the line, the inning would have ended and the Rays would not have scored, meaning it would have been a 4-1 game heading into the ninth and not a 6-1 Rays lead.

“We pitched and played some defense, and we happened to win the game,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “How about that? It’s nice to see it all coming together. That’s what we’re all about. When we pitch and play defense, we normally come out on top.”

The Rays picked up a game on both the Yankees and Red Sox. They now trail the first-place Yankees by 6 1/2 games and the Red Sox, who lead the AL wild Card race, by 4 games.

The Rays can shave another game off the Yankees lead with a win Wednesday night. The victory would also give the Rays the series.

Big games

Maddon is trying his best to downplay this series, because he doesn’t want his players to put more pressure on themselves.

But the players are saying this is a big series.

“Yeah it’s a big game,” Kazmir said. “Once you get down to this point of the season where we are in the standings, every game is huge, especially when you’re playing a team ahead of you.”

More on Kaz

Kazmir has allowed one earned run in three of his last five starts.

He held Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui and Robinson Cano, the three left-handers in the Yankees batting order, to a combined 1-for-9.

His 113 pitches were a season high. So were his 72 strikes.

It was the first time Kazmir and CC Sabathia faced each other.

Kazmir is now 4-2 with a 1.43 ERA against the Yankees at the Trop. He is 56-4 with a 2.53 ERA in 14 career games/13 starts against the Yankees. His 2.53 ERA ranks second to A.J. Burnett in ERAs against the Yankees.