Rays 6, Yankees 1, and Tampa Bay popped the champagne in the visitors' clubhouse at the Stadium. Drew Rasmussen carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning of Tuesday's nightcap, struck out 11, and by the time George Lombard Jr. finally got the Yankees on the board, the division was already gone -- clinched by the Rays on the Yankees' own field, in the second game of a split doubleheader.
The Yankees won the opener 2-0 earlier in the day. Whatever good feeling that carried into the second game lasted about three batters.
The Inning That Got Away
It didn't feel like a blowout was coming. Rasmussen was cruising, sure, but the Yankees trailed just 2-0 into the seventh -- one run on a Ryan Vilade groundout in the third, another on a Taylor Walls bunt single in the top of the seventh. Manageable.
Then Yandy Díaz stepped in against John Schreiber with two aboard and lined a single to center. Two runs scored. The Yankees challenged a tag play on the throw home -- the call was upheld -- and just like that it was 4-0. That was the game right there, a 2-run single off a reliever who'd been perfectly fine up to that point. No dramatic blast, no highlight-reel play. Just a line drive that turned a winnable game into a laugher.
Díaz wasn't done. He added a second 2-run single in the ninth off Michael Fulmer to make it 6-1, finishing 2-for-5 with 4 RBI of his own. Two swings, four runs, division title in hand.
Rasmussen's Near No-No
Here's the part that actually stung watching it live: Rasmussen didn't allow a hit until the seventh inning.
Through six, the Yankees had nothing -- no hits, two walks, and a lineup that looked lost against a sinker-slider mix it apparently couldn't square up. Rasmussen struck out 11 (his fourth career double-digit strikeout game, for whatever that's worth to a Yankees fan watching it happen) and needed a career-high 114 pitches to get there, 72 of them strikes.
Heliot Ramos broke it up leading off the bottom of the seventh, lining a 1-2 pitch -- Rasmussen's 97th of the night -- into left for a double. Small mercy. Rasmussen got two more outs before Tampa Bay went to the pen, finishing at 6.2 innings, 1 hit, 1 earned run, 3 walks, 11 strikeouts. Win number 16 against 5 losses.
Ramos scored three batters later on a George Lombard Jr. single to right. That was the whole Yankees offense for the night -- one run, set up by the same swing that broke up the no-hitter.
Fried Kept It Close Longer Than the Final Says
Max Fried doesn't get much credit in a 6-1 loss, but he matched Rasmussen for six full innings before the wheels came off. He went 6.2 innings himself, allowing 6 hits and 4 earned runs with 2 strikeouts and 2 walks -- including the bunt single that made it 2-0 and put the two runners on that would eventually come around to score.
Fried falls to 5-5, but two of those four earned runs weren't technically his fault in the moment -- he left the seventh with two runners on after the bunt single, and it was Schreiber who let Díaz's single score them both. Charged to Fried anyway. That's baseball. Yarbrough put two more runners on in the ninth; Fulmer was the one who let Díaz cash them in for the final runs of the night. Nobody hit a home run all night (a rarity for these two lineups). Both sides just kept putting the ball in play, and Tampa Bay kept finding grass.
What's Left
The Yankees are 90-67, still comfortably up 9 games on the top Wild Card spot with five to play, and the AL East race is academic now anyway -- Tampa Bay clinched it, home field through the ALCS included. The series is split 1-1 with two games left. Nothing about October changes tonight. But it's never fun watching the other guy's parade happen in your own building.
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.
