Michael Pineda certainly learned from his first start against the Tampa Bay Rays.
After getting beat up in the first series of the regular season, Pineda carried a perfect game into the seventh inning, as the Rays fell to the New York Yankees Monday 8-1 at Yankee Stadium.
Pineda (1-1) started by retiring the first 20 consecutive Tampa Bay hitters, finishing with 11 strikeouts on the afternoon. He struck out Evan Longoria, Brad Miller, and Tim Beckham twice each, and struck out every other Rays hitter except Kevin Kiermaier once.
Cobb put up scoreless innings in the first and second, but could not do the same in the third, as he struck out Brett Gardner, but a wild pitch allowed him to reach, and Jacoby Ellsbury doubled him in to open the scoring.
Aaron Judge extended the New York lead to 2-0 an inning later, taking a 2-2 curveball and depositing it into the seats in left for his second homer of the season.
Tampa Bay finally got a base runner with two out in the top of the seventh, as Longoria doubled into the left field corner.
Chase Headley led off the bottom of the seventh with a line drive that just snuck into the first row of seats in right for his second home run of the year and a 3-0 lead.
Logan Morrison finally broke up the shutout in the eighth with a blast that just got out over the auxiliary scoreboard in right-center, his second home run of the year.
New York blew the game wide open against Cobb (1-1) and reliever Austin Pruitt in the eighth, sending ten men to the plate and scoring five more games thanks to an RBI double by Matt Holliday, RBI triple from Chris Carter, two-run homer by Starlin Castro, and RBI groundout by Ronald Torreyes.
The two teams will have Tuesday off before resuming the series Wednesday, as Blake Snell (0-1, 5.40 ERA) takes on Luis Severino (0-0, 7.20 ERA). First pitch is scheduled for 1:05, with coverage on WDAE starting at noon with The Inside Pitch, presented by Sykes Lakeland.