ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The New York Yankees knew the unique challenge the Tampa Bay Rays presented going into their American League Division Series. The Yankees played 13 games during the regular season, when they were unable to chase down the Rays for the AL East title, and emphasized one point above all: Clean baseball was required to beat their division rivals three times in five games.
What transpired in their 5-2 loss in Game 2 on Monday, however, was a slopfest that the Rays devoured. The Yankees committed four errors, including three in the first inning, among other miscues in a shocking display reminiscent of their collapse in Game 5 of the 2024 World Series. Unable to generate enough offense to overcome the blunders, the Yankees will head home for Game 3 on Wednesday down 2-0 and facing elimination.
"I feel like we beat ourselves today in a lot of ways," Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. "We've just got to lock it in and go do our thing. Come together."
The mercurial Chisholm was in the middle of the first-inning disaster that the Yankees' defense forced ace Cam Schlittler to navigate inside a frenzied, sold-out Tropicana Field. The miscues began with third baseman Ryan McMahon, who was in the lineup for his defense, flubbing a routine ground ball off the bat of Rays leadoff hitter Yandy Diaz. Jonathan Aranda followed with a single through the left side, just beyond a shifted McMahon, to give Tampa runners on first and second.
Moments later, Schlittler had seemingly won a seven-pitch battle against MVP candidate Junior Caminero by getting him to hit a ground ball to the left side of rookie shortstop George Lombard Jr., who fielded it and flipped the ball to Chisholm for the sure out. Chisholm barehanded the toss and attempted to make an ill-advised spinning throw to first base as he fell to the ground. The throw sailed wide of first baseman Luis Garcia Jr. and bounced off the Rays' dugout railing, allowing Diaz to score from second base for the game's first run.
Chisholm was resolute in his decision to attempt to turn a double play.
"Honestly, I'd probably still throw it, honestly, in the play that was trying to be made," Chisholm said. "I just feel like I could've probably have tried to make an even better throw."
Said Yankees manager Aaron Boone of Chisholm's throw: "Probably a little force there. ... Probably best if you're under control and you make the throw, though it's probably going to be bang-bang. So, I don't necessarily have a problem with the throw. We've got to play catch. It's the big leagues."
Schlittler appeared to strike out Rays cleanup hitter Liam Hicks on three pitches for the second out, but, after a replay review, Yankees catcher Austin Wells was called for catcher's interference for New York's third error.
Chisholm nearly made it four when he fielded a ground ball from the speedy Chandler Simpson and threw wildly to Lombard at second base. Lombard recovered to get the out at second, but Chisholm's mistake cost the Yankees a potential inning-ending double play.
And yet, the Yankees emerged from the debacle down just 1-0 as Schlittler escaped the jam with 19 pitches, 17 for strikes.
"Cam did his job," Boone said. "We didn't give him a good enough chance to do his job."
Schlittler, the presumptive AL Cy Young Award winner, was pulled with one out in the fourth inning after throwing 76 pitches. He allowed four runs (two earned) on six hits and tied a career low with two strikeouts. Schlittler lamented his pitches not being as lively as usual after a dominant start against the Boston Red Sox in Game 1 of the wild-card series.
"I just didn't have my stuff today," Schlittler said. "I didn't get great results. Some timely hits there. Didn't get through the fifth, so it's not good enough."
On the other side, after Drew Rasmussen dominated the Yankees for eight one-hit innings before Bryan Baker tossed a perfect ninth in Game 1, Rays starter Freddy Peralta was perfect through three innings. The Yankees' offense finally woke up with Ben Rice's leadoff home run in the fourth, giving them their first hit of the night and first run of the series.
Rice added another solo home run in the eighth inning to become the first Yankee with multiple multihomer games in a single postseason. But the Yankees' offense failed to generate anything else as left-hander Ian Seymour allowed one run over three innings out of the bullpen.
The Yankees' fourth error of the night occurred during the Rays' game-busting four-run fifth inning, when Lombard made a wild throw to first base on a routine ground ball.
Lombard committed the gaffe two batters after he failed to cleanly field a chopper off Simpson's bat, allowing a run to score. Lombard was initially charged with an error, but it was changed to a single before it was reverted to an error and then it was changed one last time to a fielder's choice.
"Obviously, it wasn't ideal from the start," Lombard said. "We just didn't make some plays we usually make. Kind of happened throughout the game and, yeah, just made it harder for ourselves."
Before the official scorer made the final ruling on the play, the Yankees had briefly matched a franchise record with five errors in a postseason game -- a record New York set in Game 2 of the 1976 ALCS against the Kansas City Royals. No team had ever committed five or more errors in a playoff game since then. That was, momentarily, until the Yankees on Monday night.
It was one of the rare few developments in the Yankees' favor in Game 2. They'll need plenty more as they return home trailing 2-0 in the ALDS against the AL East champion for the second consecutive postseason. Last year, the Toronto Blue Jays had them on the brink and ended the Yankees' season in four games. The Yankees know clean baseball is a must.
"Obviously, a really rough night to say the least for us," Boone said. "We've got to get over it. We've responded all year to difficult times, and we've got to do that again. We've got to get ourselves up off the mat."