Yankees still in another league

YANKEES 7, RAYS 1: New York demonstrates gap between teams as it closes in on another title.

ST. PETERSBURG - Until they get better, the Devil Rays are going to have a hard time doing better against the Yankees. Sure they beat them once in a while, and play some tight games, but there are a lot of nights like Saturday, when the Rays kept it close for a while but the Yankees pulled away for a 7-1 victory.

Managing general partner Vince Naimoli can sit in the stands steaming and shaking his head, manager Lou Piniella can try all the maneuvers and lineup manipulations he wants, Damian Rolls, Rocco Baldelli and the others can hustle with all their heart, but they just can't match up. Not with their $8.5-million band of kids against the $180-million conglomeration of George M. Steinbrenner III.

"It goes to show you where we're at and where they're at. That's all it does," Piniella said. "We're going to have games when we give up runs and get blown out a little bit, but we've had numerous opportunities the past two weeks to win close ballgames that have gotten away from us.

"It goes to show you we need to improve, that's all."

The Yankees clinched a postseason berth and, with Boston's loss, moved two steps closer to their sixth straight AL East championship. With a win today and another Red Sox loss, they'll be assured of the title as they'd win any tiebreaker. The Rays, already guaranteed a sixth straight last-place finish, lost for the eighth time in an 11-game stretch against the Yankees and Red Sox and further imperiled their efforts to avoid a third straight 100-loss season. They'll need three wins in their final eight games to do so.

In front of a paid crowd of 27,162, largest at the Trop since opening day, the Rays and Yankees were 1-1 through five innings. But the Yankees struck for two against Jorge Sosa in the sixth, then busted it open with four runs in the eighth, with Jorge Posada, their likely team MVP, hitting a two-run home run and Alfonso Soriano ripping a two-run double off rookie reliever Jon Switzer, securing Andy Pettitte's 20th win.

"They just wore us down tonight," Piniella said.

That shouldn't be surprise. The 11 wins Sosa has in his entire professional career (four in the minors, seven in the majors) are as many as Pettitte has against the Rays. The three relievers the Rays used with the game in the balance - Mark Malaska, Brandon Backe and Switzer - have a total of 61 major-league appearances, the same as New York closer Mariano Rivera this season.

Despite the large margin, things got testy at the end, leading to Switzer's ejection. After the Rays hit Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams with pitches in the eighth, New York reliever Jeff Nelson blatantly retaliated, waiting until there were two outs and hitting Pete LaForest with a pitch that was nearly behind him.

Nelson said: "I didn't do it on purpose."

Piniella's take: "I've had Nelson a few years. He's got pretty good control."

When Switzer hit Jeter again to start the ninth, he was ejected by umpire Tim Welke even though there'd been no warning, drawing a protest from Piniella.

Switzer claimed he was just trying to continue pitching Jeter inside and a cut fastball got away. "We'd been doing that the whole series; I guess the umpire wasn't aware of it," he said.

Said Yankees manager Joe Torre: "The only thing I found hard to believe was that Lou came out and argued that it wasn't intentional."