Yankees 0, Rays 3, and the loudest sound at Tropicana Field all night came from Aaron Boone getting ejected in the sixth.
That's the kind of evening it was in Tampa. Gerrit Cole matched Shane McClanahan pitch for pitch for six innings, and it still wasn't enough, because Jonathan Aranda has apparently decided this series is personal.
The Turning Point
Aranda already had the Rays on the board with a third-inning single that scored Yandy Díaz. Then in the fifth, he did it again -- a sharp double to center that plated Nick Fortes and sent Díaz to third. That one swing added 12.4 percent to Tampa Bay's win probability, the single biggest shift of the entire game (per MLB's win probability data). Nothing else in this one came close.
Cole was cruising right up until that at-bat. He wasn't after it.
Star of the Game: Jonathan Aranda
Aranda finished 2-for-3 with a double, a sacrifice fly, and every single Rays RBI. His third-inning single scored Díaz, his fifth-inning double scored Fortes, and his seventh-inning sac fly off Fernando Cruz brought home Taylor Walls. Three runs, three different innings, one guy.
His two hits were, by a wide margin, the two most important plays of the game -- the double added 12.4 percent win probability, the single added 11.0 percent. Nobody else on either roster moved the needle that much on a single swing.
Díaz did his part too, going 4-for-4 with a double and a run scored (he's hitting .327 now, and the Yankees have seen way too much of him this week).
Cole vs. McClanahan
Cole actually pitched well. 6.1 innings, 7 hits, 3 earned runs, 6 strikeouts, one walk on 97 pitches. On a lot of nights that's a quality start that gets him a no-decision.
Not against McClanahan, who was better: 6.1 innings, 4 hits, zero runs, five strikeouts, zero walks -- his longest outing of the season and his second straight start without allowing a run. Cole Sulser and Bryan Baker finished it off from there, and Baker struck out the side in the ninth to lock down his 25th save.
Jasson Domínguez had the best night at the plate for the Yanks, going 2-for-4 (small mercies). Everyone else combined for four hits and a lot of strikeouts. No home runs for either team in this one, for what it's worth -- Aranda didn't even need the long ball to do this much damage.
Boone Gets the Hook
The sixth inning got weird. Right after Paul Goldschmidt struck out swinging to cap a strikeout-caught-stealing double play, home plate umpire Doug Eddings tossed both Boone and bench coach Brad Ausmus. Two coaches gone on the same sequence, and zero runs to show for whatever the argument was actually about (Boone addressed the ejection with reporters afterward, but didn't exactly clear up the specifics).
It capped an ugly week at the plate for the Bombers, who've now struck out 45 times against this Tampa Bay staff across the first three games of the series. Forty-five. That's not a slump, that's a pattern.
The Yankees are 50-42 now, five games back in the AL East and losers of two straight, though the wild card cushion (plus-3.5) is still very much real. This series has been a rollercoaster: the Yankees took Game 1 comfortably, 5-1, then dropped Game 2, 6-4, and now this one. Tampa Bay has the edge, 2-1, with the finale still to play Thursday at the Trop before the Yankees head to Washington for the weekend.
Go find a way to beat Jonathan Aranda's team on Thursday. That's the whole assignment.
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.
