Yankees’ bats bash Rays again for massive series win

In honor of the first Sunday of football, the Yankees scored a touchdown in the second inning on the way to a second straight blowout win.

The seven-run frame, fueled by three of their four home runs on the day, sent the Yankees to a 10-4 win over the Rays that secured a key series victory in The Bronx.

Gleyber Torres went deep twice, Giancarlo Stanton homered for the second straight game and Oswaldo Cabrera smacked his first career home run to create plenty of breathing room on a day when the Yankees pieced together a bullpen game.

“Really good,” Torres said. “I guess all the boys, we really felt good in every at-bat. In the past, we were not really good offensively, but now we showed what we can do every time we’re together. Everybody’s on the same page right now.”

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After a rough series opener on Friday night, the Yankees (85-56) came back to take the three-game set and push their AL East lead over the Rays (78-60) back to 5 ½ games with 21 to go.

For only the second time this season, manager Aaron Boone used the same batting order for a second straight game — with Aaron Judge and Stanton batting first and second. The lineup was still missing a handful of regulars, but it picked up where it left off on Saturday, as across the two games the Yankees piled up for 20 runs on 23 hits.

Before these two games, the Rays had held the Yankees to 19 runs over their previous eight meetings.

“The convincing way they did it,” Boone said when asked what impressed him most about his team’s response. “Obviously the offense was huge both days here. … Just two really good days for us heading into an off day. To get a couple more guys back in the mix and lineup is huge. Hopefully as we go, that continues to happen.”

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After a rain delay of nearly two hours to start the game, Domingo German took the mound on short rest and tossed a scoreless top of the first on 14 pitches. It proved to be his only inning of work as the Yankees went to the bullpen for Lucas Luetge to start the second inning.

That began a parade of relievers to get through the rest of the game, with the Yankees using eight total pitchers to keep the Rays in check.

A day after beginning the bottom of the first with seven straight singles, the Yankees got more economical on Sunday. Following Judge’s leadoff single and Stanton’s walk, Torres crushed a three-run homer to left field off Luis Patiño for the 3-0 lead.

After the Rays got a run back in the top of the second inning off Luetge, Patiño started the bottom of the inning by walking Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Kyle Higashioka before Marwin Gonzalez singled to load the bases. Judge then came up and hit a sacrifice fly to make it 4-1 before the power show kicked into gear.

Stanton smacked a three-run, opposite-field blast — his second homer in as many days — and Torres made it back-to-back with his second homer in as many at-bats to put the Yankees ahead 8-1.

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Patiño then walked Josh Donaldson, his fourth free pass of the game, to end his day after 1 ¹/₃ innings. The young Rays right-hander threw 70 pitches and went to full counts on seven of the 13 batters he faced.

Cabrera greeted reliever Calvin Faucher by smashing a two-run homer to right-center field. The rookie’s first career home run traveled an estimated 408 feet and extended the Yankees’ lead to 10-1.

“I feel so good,” said Cabrera, who got the ball back and planned to give it to his sister-in-law’s family that has become like a second family to him. “I feel so excited about it. It feels amazing.”