Never has the difference between $29 million and $200 million seemed as obvious as it did last night at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees spotted the Rays a 10-2 lead, then took them apart 18-1 the rest of the way, including a 13-run eighth inning that was appalling even by the Devil Rays? lowly standards. Back on June 12, Devil Rays manager ?Sweet? Lou Piniella turned into Sour Lou, lashing out at his bosses to the media, claiming the new New York-based owners, headed by investor Stuart Sternberg were only interested in the future. As one of only MLB three teams with payrolls below $40 million, the Rays, at 29,893,567, are the lowest-spending team by almost $7 million, behind the Royals ($36.8 mil) and the Pirates ($38.1 mil). Piniella?s tirade came after an 18-2 loss to the Pirates left the Rays with a league-worst 20-42 record. "If I had been given a $40 million or $45 million payroll, I'd stand up like a man and say it's my fault,? Piniella told a pack of reporters. ?Well, I'm not going to do it. So if you want answers about what's going on here, you call the new ownership group and let them give them to you." No one would argue with Piniella; the Devil Rays have perennially been the worst-run baseball franchise for years. But they had improved after their manager?s outburst, going 4-4 heading into last night?s game at the Stadium. Even more encouraging, they hadn?t allowed a team to score in double-figures since the Pirates loss. In case you don?t consider that a big deal, consider that the Rays gave up 10 or more runs in a game six times between May 29 and June 12. It was not clear whether the new ownership group was at Yankee Stadium on Monday night, when the Rays shocked the Yankees 5-4, snapping their six-game win streak. It marked the fourth straight time this season the Rays had beaten the Yankees. Had the new ownership group been present last night, they would?ve seen the Rays take apart future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, blasting him for seven runs in three innings. At that point, the new ownership group might?ve been happy to answer what was going on here: they led the mighty Yankees 10-2 in the 5th inning, and Sweet Lou was dreaming of a second straight win and (at the very least) a split of the four-game series. Well, you couldn?t really expect the Devil Rays to hold such a lead, not with Hideo Nomo pitching. The Yankees chipped away, until it was 11-7 heading into the 8th. Blame the full moon. Blame the summer solstice. Blame a season?s worth of Yankee frustration. What happened next was a hit parade worthy of the Billboard charts, and a pitching display that would be disgraceful even at Double-A level. Relief pitcher Franklin Nunez pitched one-third of an inning, gave up four hits, and was pulled for Travis Harper. Nunez was eventually charged with four runs, but he got off easy. In two-thirds of an inning?s work, Harper threw 46 pitches (!) and gave up eight hits and nine runs, including back-to-back-to-back-to-back jacks by Jorge Posada, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez (yet another key homer for A-Rod, making the score 19-11), and Hideki Matsui. The inning lasted 35 minutes, the time it usually takes to play an entire quarter in basketball or football. By the time the carnage was over, the Yankees led 20-11, and Mariano Rivera, who had begun warming up when the Yankees crept to within 11-8, had long sat down, probably looking forward to his visit by the Sandman. It?s hard to gauge the impact of a game like this on the rest of the season-- will the Yankees ignite and surge into first? Will the Rays lose Piniella and implode further? -- but the eruption shouldn?t of come as a total surprise. On April 18, the Yanks beat the Rays 19-8 in their first meeting of the season with, you guessed it, a 13-run inning. And on May 5, 1999, the Devil Rays led the Indians 10-2 before losing by a final score of?you guessed it?20-11. All of which only goes to show that in baseball, you do, indeed, get what you pay for.