ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Yankees left Tropicana Field with a problem much larger than one bad defensive inning.
Tampa Bay beat New York 5-2 in Game 2 of the American League Division Series on Monday night, sending the Yankees back to the Bronx in a 2-0 hole. The Rays broke a 1-1 tie with four runs in the fifth. Cam Booser earned the win, Cam Schlittler took the loss, and Bryan Baker recorded the save.
The Yankees committed four errors, three in the first inning. Ryan McMahon mishandled Yandy Díaz’s grounder to open the bottom of the first. Jazz Chisholm Jr. later made a throwing error, Austin Wells was charged with catcher’s interference, and George Lombard Jr. added another error in the fifth. Tampa Bay scored three unearned runs.
Yet New York’s larger October problem followed it to the plate. The Yankees have five hits in 58 at-bats through two ALDS games, a .086 average. They have scored only two runs and have just four plate appearances with runners in scoring position, going 0-for-2 with two walks.
The Yankees had one chance to change Game 2. With the score tied in the fifth, Cody Bellinger drove a bases-loaded fly 405 feet to center. Statcast gave it a .760 expected batting average, but Jonny DeLuca caught it on the warning track. Tampa Bay scored four times in the bottom half. The Yankees never recovered, and their bullpen had no margin to protect once the Rays created separation.
Aaron Boone acknowledged after the loss that the offense has to change quickly. With Aaron Judge unavailable because of his calf injury, there is no obvious rescue coming from outside the current roster.
“Whatever it takes, we’ve got to do it offensively and we’ve gotta be able to score some runs and do a better job of preventing (them,)” Boone said.
Rice turns two-homer game into Yankees history
Only after the damage around him is measured does Ben Rice’s night come fully into focus.
Rice homered twice, once off Freddy Peralta in the fourth inning to tie the game and again off Ian Seymour in the eighth to cut the deficit to three. He finished 2-for-4 and drove in every Yankees run.
The performance made Rice the first Yankee ever to record more than one multi-homer game in the same postseason. He also homered twice in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series against Boston, going 4-for-5 with six RBIs in a 9-0 victory.
A review of postseason game logs also makes Rice the first MLB player to produce two multi-homer games within his team’s first four games of a postseason.
Through four games, Rice has four home runs and eight RBIs. His four homers match Lou Gehrig’s total through the Yankees’ first four postseason games in 1928 and trail only Giancarlo Stanton’s five in 2020.
One historic bat, almost nothing around it
The sharpest measure of the Yankees’ ALDS imbalance is the gap between Rice and everyone else.
Rice is 2-for-6 with two home runs, two RBIs and two walks in the ALDS. The rest of the Yankees are 3-for-52, a .058 average, with two extra-base hits, no RBIs and two walks.
Rice owns 40% of New York’s hits in the series and 100% of its RBIs. He also has driven in eight of the Yankees’ 20 runs across their four postseason games.
The broader historical company is just as striking. Among Yankees left-handed hitters, only Gehrig in 1928 and 1932 had at least three home runs and seven RBIs through the club’s first four games of a postseason before Rice joined that group.
MLB researcher Sarah Langs also listed Rice alongside Fernando Tatis Jr., Eric Karros, Troy Glaus, Bernie Williams and Willie Aikens as the only players with two multi-homer games within their first 10 career postseason games.
Hank Aaron finalist delivers while lineup disappears
Rice’s surge came hours after MLB named him one of 10 American League finalists for the Hank Aaron Award, which recognizes the most outstanding regular-season offensive performer in each league.
The timing sharpened the contrast. The Yankees had an award finalist producing in October, yet his two solo homers were not enough to create a competitive offensive night around him.
Boone pointed to Bellinger’s fifth-inning drive as evidence that some at-bats were better than the final line suggested.
“I thought we started to put together some really good at-bats, especially in the fifth inning where we chased Peralta and Belli puts a good swing on it, hits it to the fence,” Boone said. “That’s unfortunate there.”
The Yankees still finished with four hits. Rice had two of them.
Yankees return home with Rice’s record buried by the stakes
The series shifts to Yankee Stadium, where Max Fried is scheduled to start Game 3 on Wednesday against right-hander Nick Martinez.
The math is severe. Teams taking a 2-0 lead in a best-of-five postseason series have won 83 of 93 such series, or 89%. Teams winning the first two games at home in the current Division Series format have advanced 33 of 36 times.
Rice has supplied the Yankees with four postseason homers and a franchise first. What the Yankees have not supplied is enough support to make either matter yet.
One more loss ends New York’s season, which would leave one of the fastest power starts in Yankees postseason history as little more than a statistical footnote.
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