Rays 6, Yankees 4, and for about an inning and a half, Ben Rice looked like he was going to beat Tampa Bay all by himself.
Rice jumped on the first pitch he saw from Ian Seymour in the top of the third and sent it out at 103.2 mph, 382 feet into the left-center seats -- a three-run shot that flipped a 2-0 hole into a 3-2 New York Yankees lead. It was his 26th homer of the season (the one that got him into next week's Home Run Derby field), and for a little while it looked like enough.
It wasn't.
Two Homers in the Fourth Buried It
Will Warren couldn't hold the lead, and the bottom of the fourth is where this game actually got decided.
Richie Palacios doubled home the tying run to make it 3-3, and two batters later Hunter Feduccia turned on a fastball and drove it 396 feet to right-center for a two-run shot. Yandy Díaz followed him to the plate and did almost the exact same thing -- 368 feet, solo, back-to-back -- and just like that Warren had allowed three homers and six runs in four innings.
That Feduccia homer was the biggest single swing of the night for Tampa Bay. Warren didn't make it out of the fourth. (Three home runs allowed in four innings will do that to a start.)
Warren's final line reads about as ugly as it sounds: four innings, seven hits, six runs, three of them leaving the yard. Seymour, for all the trouble Rice gave him, never let the Yankees build on that early lead again.
Rice Was the Story, Even in a Loss
Give Seymour his due for one thing: a Yankee who's about to be must-watch TV in Philadelphia next week took him deep, and he still won the game anyway.
Rice finished 3-for-4 with the homer and three RBI. It wasn't a one-swing night, either -- he's up to 26 homers and climbing, and the Yankees needed every one of those three runs just to make this a game at all.
Jasson Domínguez had the next-best night at the plate for New York, a seventh-inning single that helped set up the Yankees' final run. Ryan McMahon chipped in too. Everybody else in the lineup mostly just watched Seymour work.
Seymour's Strikeouts, and a Pen That Came Too Late
Seymour gave up the big homer to Rice and still struck out 12 Yankees over 5.1 innings without issuing a walk. That's the kind of start that wins you a game even when your own offense hasn't finished the job yet -- and Tampa Bay's offense finished it in the fourth.
To their credit, the Yankees' bullpen actually cleaned up after Warren left. Tim Hill, Paul Blackburn and Brent Headrick combined for four scoreless innings, allowing one hit total. It just came two innings too late. New York's only run after the third was a sacrifice fly off the bat of Ali Sánchez in the seventh, scoring Jazz Chisholm Jr., and Tampa Bay's bullpen -- Cam Booser, Garrett Cleavinger, Bryan Baker -- didn't blink after that, closing it out over the final 2.2 innings.
Rice will be doing his slugging on a bigger stage soon enough.
The loss drops the Yankees to 50-41, four games back of the Rays in the East (though the Wild Card picture is still plenty comfortable -- New York's holding a 4.5-game cushion there). This one snapped a modest push after New York took the series opener 5-1 the night before, and the series now sits tied 1-1 with two more at the Trop before the Yankees head to Washington.
If Rice carries this kind of night into the Derby, Philadelphia's in for a show.
Jimmy writes the Bronx Pinstripes game recap after every Yankees game. Beat-reporter pacing, fan's heartbeat. He calls opposing players by last name and has no patience for dead-air innings.
