Tonight at 7:05 p.m. ET, the Tampa Bay Rays (87-69) visit the New York Yankees (82-74) in the Bronx for the opening contest of a four-game set at Yankee Stadium. The game can be live streamed here. Rays fans can listen in on the action on the radio at WDAE 620 while fans of the Yankees can do the same by turning their dials to WCBS 880,
The Rays are riding high after a huge four-game series sweep of the Baltimore Orioles, who were chasing the Rays for a playoff spot, in a series that concluded Monday but now Tampa Bay has to face another playoff contender in the Yankees as the Bronx Bombers continue to fight for their playoff lives in their final home series of the regular season.
Matt Moore (15-4, 3.34 ERA) will toe the rubber for the visiting Rays while HIroki Kuroda (11-12, 3.17) will look to keep the Yankees' collective hopes alive at home.
The Yankees, who will continue to dawn "Mariano Rivera Final Season" patches in their last series at home for 2013, have won three of their last five contests after taking a series win against the San Francisco Giants over the weekend.
The Rays have been 6-2 through the first eight of 11 games against teams that are currently chasing playoff berths after splitting a four-game set with the Texas Rangers (85-71) and sweeping Baltimore (81-75) in their last four.
The Rays currently hold the top Wild Card spot over the Cleveland Indians (86-70) by a game, but the Yankees are just four games out of the second spot held by Cleveland and are looking to surpass Texas and the Kansas City Royals (83-73) en route to landing one of the two highly coveted spots, adding much intrigue to this late-September series.
The Boston Red Sox have clinched the American League East, so if the Yankees and Rays want to get into playoff baseball in October, then the Wild Card is the only option.
Kuroda will look to step it up as the right-hander has dropped his last two decisions and hasn't won a game since Aug. 12. Kuroda gave up three runs over six innings in his last outing, but managed to dance out of trouble a few times in the contest.
"It was gutsy; he was in trouble every inning," manager Joe Girardi said of Kuroda's performance per MLB.com. "He did a really good job of minimizing the damage."
The Rays counter with a third-year pitcher in Moore, a southpaw. Moore knows how big a win against the Yankees would be for his teams' hopes.
"Beating them is going to worsen their chances of getting in, so we can kill a couple birds with that one stone," Moore said to MLB.com about the impending series.
Third baseman Evan Longoria returned to the Rays lineup Sunday after being sidelined by flu-like symptoms, but the team lost Desmond Jennings to left hamstring tightness that they don't believe will sideline the outfielder for too long. Through 153 games, Longoria is hitting .262 with 29 homers and 77 RBIs while Jennings is hitting .251 with 14 long balls and 54 RBIs through 136 games.
Jennings left Sunday's game in the sixth inning due to the tightness. The Yankees made some injury news of their own when they announced that the team was shutting down CC Sabathia for the season, also due to a left hamstring problem as the pitcher has a Grade 2 strain. Sabathia, 33, was 14-13 this season with a career-high 4.78 ERA and 175 strikeouts through 211 innings and 32 starts.
Heading into his last ever series at Yankee Stadium as an active player, closer Mariano Rivera is 6-2 with a 2.15 ERA and 54 strikeouts through 63 games while compiling 44 saves to put his career record-breaking total at 652 saves.
Two teams with a lot to play for enter the final regular season series in 2013 at Yankee Stadium tonight in hopes to keep their postseason aspirations alive.
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