Rays open critical stretch with ugly showing in loss to Yankees

NEW YORK — Rays baseball operations president Erik Neander made clear Friday afternoon how important playing well this weekend against the Yankees, and in ensuing series against the Blue Jays and Reds, would be in determining how active they will be at the July 30 trade deadline.

With the Rays coming out of the All-Star break trailing Boston by 5 ½ games for the final American League wild-card spot (and six behind Minnesota for the second), Neander said there was no “magic number” to determine their direction, such as selling off veteran players, but they had to reduce the deficit in...

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• Marc Topkin is a sports reporter covering the Tampa Bay Rays. Reach him at mtopkin@tampabay.com.

• Rays open critical stretch with ugly showing in loss to Yankees32 minutes ago• Rays

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