Rays 4, Yankees 3, and just like that the Division Series is over. Tampa Bay swept it 3-0, and the Yankees' season ended on a Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium with Jazz Chisholm Jr. stranded at first in the ninth.
It was a wild one, too. A fan interference review, a relay throw at the plate that got an out, and a rally that came up one run short. Wild doesn't help when it's the last game.
The sixth inning decided it
Max Fried had given up a solo homer to Ryan Vilade in the fourth, a 340-foot fly ball to right, and the Yankees had answered right away. Spencer Jones doubled to left in the bottom half and scored Anthony Volpe to make it 2-2.
Then the sixth. Junior Caminero was on base for Victor Mesa Jr., and Mesa sent a 401-foot fly ball into right-center. Rays 4, Yankees 2. It left the bat at 107.3 mph, and nobody in the building had any doubt.
That swing took 28.9 percentage points of win probability off the Yankees' side by itself. Biggest swing of the night, and it wasn't close.
Fried's night
Fried went 5.2 innings, allowed 7 hits and 4 earned runs, walked nobody and struck out 7. (Zero walks and 7 strikeouts, and he still took the loss. Baseball is rude like that.) Vilade and Mesa were the only Tampa Bay homers, and both came off him.
Paul Blackburn and David Bednar cleaned up after him. Blackburn got 1.2 innings, Bednar got 1.2 more with 2 strikeouts, and neither allowed a hit. The bullpen did its job. The offense just ran out of innings.
The Yankees almost got there
The best play of the night was in the third. Jonny DeLuca scored on Aranda's single, and Taylor Walls tried to follow him home. Jones threw to García Jr., who relayed to Lombard Jr., who got it to Austin Wells in time. Four players touched the ball, one runner was out, and the game stayed at 1-0.
Ben Rice tied it in the bottom half with a single that scored Jones. Jones was the Yankees' best hitter on the night: a double, an RBI, two walks and a run scored in two official at-bats.
The sixth gave them a chance to answer. Volpe drove a ball to left-center, the umpires called it a home run, and then they reviewed it. Fan interference. They overturned the call, gave Volpe a double, and George Lombard Jr. scored to make it 4-3.
Lombard finished 2-for-3 with a walk. Volpe went 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI. They did their part.
Credit where it's due on the other side. Nick Martinez started for Tampa Bay and lasted 3.2 innings, giving up 5 hits and 2 runs. Griffin Jax took over, gave up that one run in the sixth, and still struck out 4 in 2.0 innings. The Rays' pitching staff bent all night and never really broke.
The ninth
The Yankees had seven hits and no home runs. They left seven men on base. That's the whole story of the offense, and the ninth showed it. Volpe struck out, Jones walked, and Chisholm grounded into a force out at second that erased Jones. Then Trent Grisham struck out swinging with Chisholm on first.
Grisham went 0-for-5 with 3 strikeouts. Cody Bellinger went 0-for-4. Bryan Baker walked one and struck out two in the ninth to earn the save, and Ian Seymour got the win after 1.1 scoreless innings with 2 strikeouts.
Nobody wants to hear this tonight, but Tampa Bay won all three games and the Yankees never held a lead in this one. They tied it twice and got within a run. The Rays just made one more play.
The season's over. Jones and Lombard are the two I'll be thinking about all winter.
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.
