ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A line drive that settled into Rays second baseman Ben Zobrist’s leather in the first inning extended the slump to 0-for-17 to start the season.
As Mark Teixeira took the field for the home half of the first inning, he knew that had surpassed the worst start of his sensational career, an 0-for-16 slide at the outset of the 2003 season.
A walk to start the fourth was a baby step and in the fifth he slashed an RBI double to right of Wade Davis.
“During the course of your career you are always looking for milestones,” Teixeira joked after helping the Yankees drill the Rays, 10-0. “I made sure I got to 0-for-17. After that I got [three] hits.”
Teixeira, who finished 3-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored, singled to left in the eighth and singled off the left-field wall in the ninth. The .150 batting average isn’t much, but it’s .150 higher than what the switch-hitting first baseman started the day with.
“It was frustrating but once I got the first one to roll in and we were winning the game, that made me relax,” said Teixeira, who scored on Robinson Cano’s homer in the fourth with the game’s first run. “I am not in a slump anymore.”
Teixeira took batting practice Thursday while the rest of the team was off. Before Friday night’s game he described his batting practice as “good.” Then he didn’t get the ball out of the infield in four at-bats against lefty David Price in a 9-3 defeat.
Teixeira not only helped fuel the win with three hits, he turned in the first of three amazing plays to keep CC Sabathia’s no-hit bid alive when he left his feet to snag Jason Bartlett’s leadoff liner out of the air for the first out in the sixth.
“I didn’t look at the scoreboard until the fifth inning and then (the no-hitter) is in the fifth and you say, ‘Oh my goodness,’ ” Teixeira said. “It was a good play and a fun play.”
But not the best play.
“Alex [Rodriguez’s] play was unbelievable,” Teixeira said of the third baseman robbing B.J. Upton of an extra base hit by diving toward the line to field a bullet and throw the speedy Upton out at first in the seventh. “That might be the best play all year.”