A Sleepy Yankee “Road” Win And Other Tidbits Of Infomation

As the Yankees cruised to a sleepy 5-1 “road” win at Citi Field over the Tampa Bay Rays. It sure felt like a Mets home game with the “home” Rays getting the boring loss. The only thing missing was a key injury.

The crowd was almost all Yankee fans and chanted “Let’s Go Yankees!” throughout the game. They even did the signature roll call during the bottom of the first when the Yankees were in the field.  

“Yeah, I thought it was difficult for Tampa Bay fans to get here, especially because they announced this on Friday,” said Yankees manager Joe Girardi.

Some other interesting tidbits of information:

The attendance for the night was 15, 327 and the Rays average 15,309 at home for the season. The upper decks of Citi Field were closed, just like they are at times at Tropicana Field.

This was the seventh game the Rays played as the home team outdoors. In 2007 and 2008 they played three game series at Disney in Orlando. They also played two games at the Tokyo Dome in Japan in 2004 against the Yankees. This was the first regular season home game they played in another major league park.

The Tokyo Dome series was the last time the Yankees played in a “neutral” location.

This was the 161^st game the Yankees played in the Mets home ballpark without the Mets playing them. In 1975, the Yankees played only 78 home games, including a continuation of a game that started at home but ended in Minnesota, so that’s counted as a road walkoff win.

This was the first MLB game at Citi Field to use the designated hitter rule, with the exception of the 2013 All-Star game. The St. John’s vs Georgetown game in 2009 also used the DH.

The Citi Field scoreboard operators used the Rays opening and lineup introduction videos, which the Rays sent them.

This was Lucas Duda’s first game back to Citi Field after being traded. He was able to get his old locker.

The two teams will be playing tomorrow (7:10 start) and Wednesday (1:10 start). Limited tickets are still available, but fans are strongly encouraged to take mass transit, as the Citi Field parking lots are closed because of a concert setup for this weekend.