Aaron Boone walked into this series sounding confident about his Yankees defense. After Game 2, that confidence looks a lot harder to defend.
The Yankees were undone by a sloppy, 5-2 loss in St. Petersburg, Fla., one that left their season hanging by a thread and put Boone’s pre-series comments under a harsh spotlight. Boone had brushed off concerns about the team’s gloves, even after Trent Grisham’s costly lapse in the Wild Card Series against the Red Sox, and insisted New York could handle what the Rays were going to throw at them.
Asked whether he worried about Grisham’s defense in a series against a fast Tampa Bay club that puts the ball in play, Boone said, “No. We have what we got. Obviously we’ve got to play well and take care of the ball.”
When the questions turned broader, Boone was still unmoved. On the Yankees’ overall defense, he said, “OK.
I think room for better. I think we’ve had some standout guys and some standout positions, but I also feel like we’re capable of more.”
Pressed on how, Boone added, “In a lot of ways. I’m not going to get in the weeds and start pointing out this guy’s not good, that guy’s great.”
Then came the real tell. Asked whether it bothered him that opposing scouting reports basically say to attack the Yankees on the ground, Boone answered, “You’ve got to beat us somehow.”
That might have sounded like a nod to a weakness. Boone quickly backed away from that interpretation.
“At times we’ve been very good when people don’t acknowledge it, at times we have been bad. I don’t get caught up in it.
We’re trying to prepare as best we can to maximize our guys and our team. If you’re implying we’re a bad defense, no, we’re not.”
Game 2 made that denial look flimsy.
With Cy Young shoo-in Cam Schlittler on the mound and the Yankees trying to level the series, the Rays jumped on them immediately. Third baseman Ryan McMahon missed a two-hopper to start the first inning.
Jazz Chisholm then threw wildly to first on a double-play chance, allowing a run to score. Then Liam Hicks reached on catcher’s interference when his backswing clipped Austin Wells’ mitt.
That was a first in Yankees postseason history: three errors in a single playoff inning.
The mess kept growing. George Lombard Jr. was charged with a fielding error and throwing error in the fifth before the scorer later changed the play to a fielder’s choice, sparing New York from tying its franchise record of five errors in a playoff game. The Yankees’ previous high came in Game 2 of the 1976 ALCS against Kansas City, when Thurman Munson committed two of them.
There was one bright defensive moment in the first when Lombard bailed out Chisholm after a risky no-look flip to second sailed high. Lombard lunged left to snag the throw, then stretched to the bag just in time to force out Liam Hicks.
Even Schlittler knew what kind of night it was. “It didn’t seem like we really showed up today, so that’s what happens,” he said.
Lombard didn’t argue. “Yeah, he’s not wrong,” he said.
“Obviously, it wasn’t ideal from the start. We just didn’t make some plays that we usually make.
It kind of happened throughout the game, and it just made it harder for ourselves.”
The Yankees now need three straight wins to keep their season alive. Game 3 is in New York, with left-hander Max Fried set to start against Rays right-hander Nick Martinez, who was 15-6 with a 3.10 ERA.
The offense hasn’t exactly rescued them, either. In Game 1, the Yankees were no-hit for 7 2/3 innings by Drew Rasmussen and finished with one hit, a Wells double that turned into an out at third when he tried to stretch it.
Game 2 wasn’t much better. Ben Rice’s fourth-inning homer off Freddy Peralta briefly tied it, and Rice added another solo shot in the eighth, but New York managed only two other hits.
That leaves the Yankees with four hits and four errors across 18 innings against the team that beat them for the AL East title and the league’s best record.
Boone is still leaning on resilience. “We’ve got to get over it,” he said.
“We’ve responded all year to difficult times, and we’ve got to do that again. We’ve got to get ourselves up off the mat.”
For now, though, the numbers and the tape tell a harsher story. Boone insisted the Yankees weren’t a bad defense. Game 2 looked like a team that had no answer when the pressure arrived.
Schlittler tried to put a positive spin on it anyway. “We have a great defense,” he said.
“They’ve been great all year. It just didn’t go our way there in the first.”
Or in the fifth.
Lombard was the one who said it straight. “It just sucks,” he said.
“Losing that way where we just hurt ourselves several times, it sucks. It’s not a good feeling.
We’re gonna have to learn from it and somehow move on from it and get ready for Game 3. We still got some life so we just gotta keep going.”
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