NEW YORK -- Since April 1, one team has stood alone atop the American League East standings.

It might not after this weekend.

Many around baseball thought the switch might have happened last weekend, when the division-leading Tampa Bay Rays played host to the hobbled but surprisingly surging New York Yankees in a pivotal early-season series at Tropicana Field.

But the Rays managed to scratch out one win in those three games -- and still led the AL East on Monday.

Now, five days later, the teams meet again for another three-game set, this time at Yankee Stadium. The Rays enter this series with a half-game lead threatened by a Bronx Bombers club that has battled through a bevy of injuries and bludgeoned its way up the standings.

In looking ahead to the weekend, it's worthwhile to look back at the last time these teams faced off. Here are four things the Yankees have learned about the Rays.

1. Tampa Bay's pitching staff is tough, but ...

The Rays' rotation primarily hinges on two of the arms the Yankees will face this weekend: those of Charlie Morton and defending Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell.

The Yankees have gotten to both of them in the past. In Sunday's 7-1 series finale win, the Bombers ultimately cruised to the lopsided victory thanks to timely post-power-outage pop against Tampa Bay's bullpen after the unexpected 43-minute delay. Although Snell was handed his fourth loss of the season, he allowed just two earned runs and four hits. With his breaking pitches working, he also struck out 12.

Still, his stuff against the Yankees hasn't always been so sharp: Snell is 3-5 with a 4.25 ERA and eight home runs allowed in 12 career starts versus the team he's faced more than any other.

Morton has squared off with the Yankees just four times in his 12-year career. While he has a 2-1 record against them, his ERA in those starts is 4.10. In his latest outing against the Yankees, late last May in the Bronx, Morton -- pitching for Houston at the time -- gave up eight hits and two home runs in an eventual Yankees win.

Before their collapse Sunday, the Rays' bullpen lost last Friday's series opener. Specifically, that game was decided in the sixth when reliever Emilio Pagan gave up a two-strike RBI single to Gio Urshela. The go-ahead drive effectively negated the nine-strikeout performance Tyler Glasnow had delivered before a forearm injury took him out of the game and ultimately landed him on the injured list.

As for Urshela, the third baseman who has replaced Miguel Andujar (lost for the year with a torn labrum), his month-plus tenure in the big leagues this season has been stellar. Key two-strike hits and run-producing drives are becoming as much a part of his game as the slick barehanded grabs he's had charging in from third.

As formidable as parts of this Rays staff might be, the Yankees learned last weekend they can navigate it.

2. The Rays aren't afraid to pitch aggressively -- just ask Luke Voit

Voit, the Yankees' hulking first baseman who has been a rather unexpected offensive godsend, has gotten a ton of pitches inside this season.

He's gotten so many that he's started taking exception to them. If you were hit five times in 42 games, you probably wouldn't be too happy either. "It's frustrating," Voit said after getting plunked last Saturday at Tampa Bay.