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Yanks hope to find some offense in middle tilt with Rays

Sep 16, 2014 - 2:50 PM (Sports Network) - The offense has been, well, offensive.

The New York Yankees will try to reverse a recent run-scoring funk and resume their pursuit of an American League postseason berth when they face the Tampa Bay Rays in game two of a three-game series on Tuesday night at Tropicana Field.

The Yankees haven't missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons since 1992 and 1993, but they've dropped four of their last five games to fall six games behind Kansas City for the second of two AL wild card playoff berths.

New York's 577 runs scored for the season is last in the AL and the Yankees were shut out for the fourth time in 11 games in Monday's opener.

"We're just not hitting for whatever reason," manager Joe Girardi said "Eventually it has to turn, but it needs to turn very quickly."

Michael Pineda gets the mound start for New York after going three straight starts without a run scored in support. The Yankees, in fact, were no-hit for more than seven innings by Tampa Bay's Alex Cobb in his last outing.

Pineda allowed four runs on 10 hits in 7 1/3 innings in that game, which the Yankees did rally to win, 5-4. Prior to that start, he hadn't faced the Rays since 2011.

He's opposed by Jake Odorizzi, who gave up six runs in less than five innings of an 8-5 loss to the Yankees on Wednesday in New York.

He'd entered the outing having tossed 14 1/3 straight scoreless innings.

"I'm solely to blame," Odorizzi said. "The loss is on me and the whole team can point the finger in this direction and I'll accept it."

He's faced the Yankees three times this season, all in New York, and is 1-1 with a 7.71 earned run average.

Retiring shortstop Derek Jeter did not start Monday amid an 0-for-24 slump that's dropped his batting average to .250.

"I really haven't thought about it," he said. "I'm just trying to help us win. For me, I just want to go out and I want to play well. I want to get a hit every single time up."

On Monday, Ben Zobrist singled in the only run of the night with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, lifting the Rays to a 1-0 win over New York. Zobrist's second hit of the game brought home Logan Forsythe from third and sent the Yankees to a fourth loss in their last five outings.

The contest featured strong starting pitching on both ends. Alex Colome, recalled from Triple-A Durham on Monday, scattered six hits over 6 2/3 scoreless frames in just his second major-league start of the season, while New York's Chris Capuano kept the Rays off the board in six innings of work.

Tampa Bay recorded just five hits for the game, but three of them came off Shawn Kelley (3-6) in the deciding ninth. Forsythe and James Loney laced back- to-back one-out singles to put the winning run in scoring position with one out. Kelley briefly regrouped to strike out David DeJesus, but walked pinch- hitter Matt Joyce to load the bases in front of Zobrist's clean hit to right field.

Joel Peralta (3-4) issued a leadoff walk in the top of the ninth, then set down the next three Yankee hitters to help set up Zobrist's heroics.