The Rays took control of ALDS Game 2 with a messy, tense 5-2 win over the Yankees, and the story of the night was a simple one: New York kept giving away extra chances, and Tampa Bay kept waiting for the one that mattered.
It started sloppily for the Yankees. The bottom of the first inning featured three infield errors, beginning when Ryan McMahon booted a routine hopper from Yandy Diaz to lead off the game.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a throwing error, and then Austin Wells interfered with a swing by Liam Hicks. Even with all that chaos and traffic on the bases, the Rays only cashed in once, scoring on the errant throw that brought Diaz home.
Cam Schlittler had to keep working through more pressure in the second and third, but he repeatedly found a way out of trouble. Tampa Bay went 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position through the first three innings, and 0 for 13 in the series at that point. That dry spell changed when Ben Rice led off the fourth with a home run on a poorly located changeup.
New York had a chance to build on it after Cody Bellinger followed with a line-drive single just past a diving Taylor Walls, but Peralta settled in and stranded him by getting Spencer Jones and then inducing an infield flyout to George Lombard Jr. The Rays then went quietly in the bottom half until Yandy Diaz ripped a ball to the right-center gap that Trent Grisham tracked down. It came off the bat at 103 mph with a .540 expected batting average, a reminder that the loud contact had been missing for much of the night.
The fifth inning flipped everything.
The Yankees put together a two-out rally in the top half when Austin Wells doubled, then Ryan McMahon and Ben Rice both drew walks. That set up Bellinger, whose 405-foot flyball would have been a home run in 12 parks, but Tropicana Field held it in.
New York paid for that miss almost immediately. The Rays opened the bottom of the fifth with Aranda’s single, a 109.1 mph ball with a .650 expected batting average that Spencer Jones misread badly.
Junior Caminero followed with a 112.4 mph double into the right-center gap, giving Schlittler three straight 100-plus mph batted balls against him. The actual run-scoring hit was the softest one of the bunch: Liam Hicks tied up with a cutter and sent a 55.1 mph grounder to second, perfect for the contact play with Aranda breaking from third.
Then came another contact play from Chandler Simpson to bring in Caminero, and Schlittler’s night was done. Brent Hendrick entered and struck out Victor Mesa Jr., but the Yankees’ fourth error of the game kept the inning alive. Simpson and DeLuca both stole second around that strikeout, and Richie Palacios later singled after swinging at ball four in a 3-0 count, allowing two more Rays to score.
That was it for the offense with runners in scoring position. The only other run in the game came on Rice’s second solo homer of the night.
Freddy Peralta, Cam Booser, Ian Seymour, and Bryan Baker handled the pitching for Kevin Cash. Peralta worked 4.2 innings despite not having his best changeup, finishing with 12 whiffs, but only three came on that pitch.
Cash went to Booser before Rice could come up a third time, and after Booser walked him, Seymour took over and delivered three innings with four strikeouts, no walks, and just Rice’s second homer as the only blemish. Baker closed it out with a 1-2-3 ninth.
Schlittler’s pregame comments about Tropicana Field feeling like a home game for the Rays looked right for a moment, especially during that loud Yankees rally in the fifth. But once Bellinger’s deep fly fell short, the air came right out of the visiting side.
Aaron Boone had to lean on five relievers behind Schlittler, and the Yankees’ defense never helped the young starter settle in. The result was a game where New York left Tampa with the same kind of feeling it brought into the series: too many mistakes, not enough payoff.
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