The Rays will send lefty David Price (9-7, 3.73) to the hill while the Yankees will counter with veteran right-hander Freddy Garcia (7-7, 3.43). Sportsbooks opened the price for Price at -145 with the total at 7.5.

Tampa Bay (51-44) rebounded from a pair of gut wrenching losses to beat New York 3-2 on Tuesday. Winning pitcher Jeremy Hellickson (9-7) worked seven innings and allowed two runs and five hits to stop the Rays three game slide.

Bartolo Colon took the loss despite striking out nine over six innings while Robinson Cano hit a two-run homer.

The Rays have now played five one-run games in their last seven outings including a 1-0, 16 inning setback to the Red Sox on Sunday. The next night they blew a late 4-1 lead to lose 5-4 to the Yankees in the series opener.

The rookie Hellickson provided the much needed bounce back effort helping Tampa Bay move to within seven games of the Red Sox in the American League East and 5 ½ games back of the Yanks for the wild card. It marked the first time since May 11 that the Rays managed to pick up a game in the standings on both the Yankees and Red Sox.

Price is right

David Price has yet to lose to the Bronx Bombers going 2-0 with a 2.93 ERA in nine starts at home. He was a part of baseball history the last time he faced New York surrendering career hit #3,000 to Derek Jeter in a 5-4 loss. The Yankees two biggest sluggers, Mark Texeira and Curtis Granderson have both struggled against Price with ‘Tex’ going 5 for 25 while Granderson has just four hits in 21 at-bats.

Price is 1-1 in his last three starts with a sky high ERA of 5.82. He’s allowed 11 runs and 17 hits including three homers in his last 17 innings of work. He won his last start beating Boston on Friday 9-6.

No retread

Freddy Garcia has much inmon with teammate Bartolo Colon. Both are veteran pitchers, both are right-handers and both have saved the Yankees injury riddled rotation. With Phil Hughes injured and rookie Ivan Nova back in the minors, Garcia has stepped up big time. Even though he’s won as many as he’s lost, Garcia has given New York 11 quality starts in 2011 living up to his reputation as an innings eater.

Freddy allowed five runs in five innings in his last start on Friday a 7-1 loss to Toronto but in the five prior starts he gave up just seven runs in 33 2/3 innings. He’s 8-2 lifetime against the Rays with a 3.56 ERA. All but one of his 15 starts against them came during his time with the Mariners and White Sox

Keeping them close

Of the six previous meetings between NY and TB, four of them have been decided by one run. Overall New York leads the season series 4-3.

Tonight’s starters havebined to go 20-12 to the ‘under’ with Garcia 10-4 to the low side. The ‘under’ is also 15-5-1 in the Yankees last 21 road games and 11-4-1 overall.

Harvey’s Take: It’s the ‘under’ for me tonight. The Rays are built on pitching and defense certainly not offense. Tampa Bay has been blanked three times in their last 10 games and has scored seven runs in their last 35 innings. Meanwhile the Yankees traditionally struggle against Price who has held them to under three runs per nine innings in his career.

Go low and good luck!

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