ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Some days during the course of a baseball season, events occur that are not easily explained. Sunday was one of those days here, when outliers became the ordinary and the rare began to resemble the routine.
Stephen Drew was spared an out when his foul pop-up hit the catwalk, John Ryan Murphy had a bat splinter — not at the handle but at the head — and for the second time in less than 24 hours, a less-than-fleet-of-foot Yankee legged out a triple: Garrett Jones following in Brian McCann’s plodding footsteps.
But the most significant anomaly for the Yankees was that their 5-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays allowed them to sweep a series here for the first time since 2005.