ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The Yankees did not just lose Game 2 of the ALDS on Monday night. They handed it away in pieces.
New York was charged with four errors in a 5-2 defeat to the Rays at Tropicana Field, a loss that put Tampa Bay up 2-0 in the American League Division Series and moved the Rays within one win of the A.L. Championship Series. A win in New York on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium would send Tampa Bay through.
The defensive mess began immediately and never really let up. In the bottom of the first, Yandy Díaz opened the inning by smashing a grounder that skipped past third baseman Ryan McMahon.
“The ball just kicked up on me,” McMahon said.
After Jonathan Aranda singled to put runners on first and second, Junior Caminero rolled a slow grounder to shortstop George Lombard Jr., who flipped to second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. for the force at second. Chisholm then threw wide of first baseman Luis García Jr., and that mistake let Díaz score. The next batter, Liam Hicks, reached on catcher’s interference by Austin Wells.
“Honestly. I caught the ball before he even hit my glove,” Wells said.
“It was such a weird one. I thought I was back enough.
The ball was by him. I don’t think I was too close.
It’s the way Hicks swung the bat on that check swing. …Obviously, that can’t happen on an 0-2 count ever with Cam on the mound."
Even with the sloppy frame around him, Cam Schlittler kept the damage from getting worse. He allowed only the unearned run in the inning and needed just 19 pitches to get through it.
“Cam did a great job picking us up,” Chisholm said.
Schlittler finished after 4.1 innings and said he wasn’t interested in putting the blame anywhere else.
"It starts with me. I will be first to say, ’I didn’t do my job.'
That’s what happens,” he said to reporters. “The Rays played really good baseball.
They took advantage of those opportunities.”
New York’s dugout tried to steady itself early. After the first inning, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton were waiting when the players came back in, urging them to keep pushing. Judge is out of the postseason roster because of a right calf injury, while Stanton is limited to pinch-hitting because of calf problems.
“That’s why they are our leaders. They are in there every at-bat and every inning,” Chisholm recalled.
"Every time we came off the field, they were just saying, 'Hey, let’s go. We’ve done it before.
We keep our heads up. We play until the last out and the last pitch.'”
The Yankees did briefly claw back. Ben Rice tied it at 1 in the fourth when he turned on a 2-2 pitch from Freddy Peralta and sent it over the right-field wall.
They had a real chance to grab the lead in the fifth. With the bases loaded and two outs, Cody Bellinger squared up Cam Booser and sent a drive to center, but Jonny Deluca made the catch in front of the wall to end the inning.
“I thought we started to put together some really good at-bats, especially in the fifth inning where we chased Peralta and Belly puts a good swing on it, hits it to the fence. That's unfortunate there,” Boone said.
The game swung back Tampa Bay’s way in the bottom of the fifth, when another Yankees error extended the inning. Lombard was charged with the mistake, and the Rays used the extra life to score two runs, including a Richie Palacios RBI single.
The Yankees are now in must-win territory, needing two victories at home just to bring the series back to Tropicana Field.
“It starts one play, one inning at a time,” Boone said. “So we can't play like (we did on Monday) and expect a win.
So we've got to come out Wednesday night. Everything's on the line.
It's obviously all hands on deck, and we've got to try and get one and then go from there. So we're capable of doing it.
This team has been really good at picking themselves up all year. ”
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