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Game 162: Walk-Off to Walk in to October

The Yankees lose a 7-0 lead when Evan Longoria completed the amazing comeback for the even more amazing comeback to take the Wild Card and make it to the postseason in the final game of the season with his second home run of the night, a walk-off one. The Rays won the last game of the season against the Yankees in a 8-7 game in 12 innings.

 

Until the 6th inning, most of the regular Yankees played in the last game of the regular season. Some of the regulars made the most of the opportunity to spoil the Rays chance at October baseball. Many would think that with David Price on the mound, the Yankees would have a hard time playing spoiler but Price surrendered 6 runs over 4 innings, including 2 home runs. The home runs that Price gave up were to Yankees first baseman, Mark Teixeira. The two home runs were all of Teixeira’s hits and one of the home runs was a grand slam as he drove in 5 of the Yankees early 7 runs. After the 6th inning, the regulars were taken out of the game gradually. As the regulars were removed from the game, the offense only got about 2 hits through the remaining 6 innings of baseball.

 

With the Yankees preparing their pitching staff for the postseason, starting on Friday, the secondary staff of almost all September call-ups was put in to face the Tampa Bay Rays. The Yankees used a total of 11 pitchers in tonight’s game. Dellin Betances made his first major league start tonight and pitched well by giving up just two hits in a short 2 innings of work just to get him a taste of what it was like. The pieced together bullpen included a scoreless appearance by Phil Hughes and a 0.1 relief appearance by A.J. Burnett which may indicate the direction Girardi will go in with these two pitchers.

 

The 8th and 9th innings were where the collapse of the 7-0 lead took place. After Boone Logan got the last out of the 7th inning, he couldn’t get another out. He handed the ball and the bases-loaded jam to Luis Ayala, who also had extreme difficulty despite his impressive pitching throughout the season. He walked one and hit another to allow two runs to reduce their lead to 5. Another run scored and Evan Longoria came up to bat with two on the bases and a 4-run deficit to overcome. Longoria proceeded to hit the home run to bring the Rays within 1.

 

In the 9th inning with 2 outs, Dan Johnson came in as a pinch-hitter against Cory Wade, a former teammate as a member of the Rays farm system, and hit the game-tying home run.

 

With the Orioles tying the game against the Boston Red Sox showing up on the scoreboard, the fans in St. Petersburg erupted with cheers. Then the Tampa Bay fans were informed of the Red Sox loss just as Evan Longoria was stepping to the plate in the 12th inning. He took Scott Proctor’s 56th pitch of the night just in the left field foul pole to walk-off for the Tampa Bay Rays and complete an outstanding comeback as well as complete a comeback from 9 games back in the beginning of September to make it to the postseason as the Wild Card team.

 

The Yankees had no reason or intention of playing their regulars for the entire game tonight. The risk of injury to a key player of the postseason roster was not worth a win in tonight’s game as the Yankees have ensured that they have home field advantage throughout the American League side of the postseason. The Yankees let their starting lineup play and they did what they normally do, score and score frequently with the home run. Congratulations do go out to the Tampa Bay Rays for completing their comeback.

 

As a result of the last games of the regular season, the Red Sox were eliminated and the Rays are the Wild Card team. The Yankees also learned that they will be playing the Detroit Tigers in the first round.

 

Ryan Nakada

@adakannayr