ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Cody Bellinger was the Yankees’ topgun in Aaron Judge’s absence. The team wants him to lead by example.
But the Yankees spent Monday night learning how prone he is to small mistakes in October.
Tampa Bay beat New York 5-2 in Game 2 of the American League Division Series at Tropicana Field, pushing the Yankees into a 0-2 hole. The Yankees committed four official errors, managed only four hits and now must win three straight games to advance in the MLB postseason.
The most damaging sequence came in a four-run fifth inning, but the night had begun fraying well before then. New York repeatedly gave Tampa Bay extra bases and extra chances, exactly the kind of margin a postseason team cannot surrender.
That made one earlier play stand out because it never appeared in the error column. It involved Cody Bellinger, one of the most experienced players in the Yankees lineup and a veteran whose defense is normally among the safer parts of New York’s game.
Bellinger’s second-inning choice never became an error
The Rays led 1-0 entering the second. Schlittler had just thrown 19 pitches in a first inning that featured three Yankees errors.
DeLuca led off. He reached down for an 0-2 curveball near the dirt and drove it 95.8 mph and 357 feet to left. The ball nearly cleared the fence before striking the wall and bouncing back onto the field.
That is where Bellinger’s rare lapse began. The veteran left fielder misread the carom and had to chase the ball down along the track.
His throw to second base made it worse. The ball skipped across the turf several times before it reached Jazz Chisholm Jr., DeLuca slid in safely with a double.
A firm throw on the fly to Chisholm’s glove may well have held DeLuca to a single. For a 2019 Gold Glove winner, it was an unusual fundamental breakdown.
The Rays did not cash in. DeLuca was stranded. Still, the extra base kept Schlittler laboring. He reached 41 pitches through two innings, MLB.com reported.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone pointed to that early workload when explaining why his ace never settled into a groove.
“I think it’s maybe a different story there if we take care of the ball and he’s at 25-30 pitches instead after the first two [innings] and gets in a rhythm,” Boone said.
The sequence offered a less obvious example of what went wrong for the Yankees. A cleaner pickup and a firm throw directly to Chisholm would have given New York a better chance to limit DeLuca to one base.
One chance with a runner in scoring position
Bellinger also had chances to change the game offensively.
He supplied one of the Yankees’ four hits, a single. Rice homered twice, both solo shots. Wells added a double.
He singled in the fourth immediately after Ben Rice tied the game with a solo homer. The Yankees could not bring him home.
An inning later, Austin Wells doubled, Ryan McMahon walked and Rice drew a walk to load the bases with two outs and the score tied 1-1.
Bellinger drove Cam Booser’s pitch 405 feet to center field at 102.9 mph. DeLuca caught it on the warning track to end the inning.
Afterward, Bellinger kept his message narrow as the Yankees faced the possibility that their season could end in Game 3.
“Take it on the chin,” Bellinger said. “Go out and win a game on Wednesday.”
His next response reflected the same approach. The Yankees cannot repair the first two games at Tropicana Field, and Bellinger did not try to frame the comeback beyond the next assignment.
“One game at a time,” Bellinger said. “Can’t look too far ahead.”
That leaves Bellinger 4-for-17 this postseason. All four of his RBIs came in the Sept. 30 Wild Card Series clincher, a 9-2 rout of the Boston Red Sox capped by his three-run homer off Garrett Whitlock.
A quieter season raised the stakes
Bellinger hit .264 with 17 homers and 73 RBIs in 132 regular-season games. That was down from 29 homers and 98 RBIs in 152 games in 2025, before he returned to the Yankees on a five-year, $162.5 million deal.
His glove has long been part of his value. That made the second-inning sequence stand out.
Bellinger committed only three errors during the 2026 regular season while moving around the Yankees outfield. His second-inning sequence was not an official misplay, which made it easy to miss on a night filled with more obvious defensive failures.
Schlittler took the loss after allowing four runs, two earned, on six hits and one walk over 4 1/3 innings. Cam Booser earned the win for Tampa Bay, and Bryan Baker recorded his second save of the series.
Yankees need veteran precision with season on the line
Bellinger is 1-for-8 with no RBIs through two games against Tampa Bay, while the Yankees have scored only two runs in the series. Rice has driven in both with solo homers.
That leaves little room for wasted offense or wasted bases on defense. The Yankees lost Game 1 by one run, then watched Game 2 unravel through official errors, missed execution and Tampa Bay’s pressure.
Bellinger’s second-inning throw was not the reason New York lost. DeLuca never scored in that inning, and the Yankees had larger breakdowns later.
But it fit the night. In October, a play does not have to become an error or a run to expose the cost of imprecise baseball.
The Yankees return to Yankee Stadium for Game 3 on Wednesday with Max Fried scheduled to start and their season on the line. For Bellinger and the rest of the lineup, the assignment is simple: no wasted at-bats, no wasted outs and no wasted 90 feet.
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