NEW YORK — For five innings, the Yankees looked ready to sleepwalk into October. One hit. No answers. A four-run hole against a team they may see again in two weeks.
Then the game flipped, and it flipped on the arms Tampa Bay had left in the bullpen. Rookie George Lombard Jr. delivered the decisive blow, a two-run homer in the eighth.
The Rays got exactly what they wanted from their starter and still walked out of the Bronx with a loss. Their front-line pitching held. Everything behind it did not.
For a Yankees lineup missing its biggest bat, that contrast may matter more than the final score.
New York rallied from a 4-0 deficit to beat the Rays 6-4 on Thursday night at Yankee Stadium, scoring all six runs against Tampa Bay’s relief corps after left-hander Ian Seymour blanked them through five. The win offered a preview of how the Yankees might solve the top-seeded Rays in a possible division series.
First Yankees caves, then cruises
Seymour was sharp. The left-hander allowed one hit over five scoreless innings, walked none and struck out three on 58 pitches. Through five, the Yankees had nothing going.
The math changed the moment he left. Tampa Bay’s relievers surrendered all six New York runs across the final innings, unraveling a game the starter had controlled.
Jake Woodford took the first hit, charged with three runs. Brody Hopkins fanned the flames in the seventh, and Steven Matz gave up the game-loser in the eighth. The Rays fell to 96-63, still the No. 1 seed in the American League, but the finish exposed a soft middle behind their best arms.
The Yankees managed just one hit through five, then scored six unanswered. It was the kind of late surge that reveals a bullpen’s limits, and the Rays now carry that question into a five-day layoff before the AL Division Series.
Lombard steals the night
Lombard was the engine. The 21-year-old rookie doubled home a run in a three-run seventh, then scored on one of the more improbable plays of the season, a scrambling, contortionist slide around catcher Liam Hicks on a wild pitch to the backstop.
An inning later, he ended it. Lombard drove a 2-2 sinker from Matz into the second deck in left field for a two-run homer, his seventh in 41 games and his fourth in his last seven. He described the slide as pure improvisation.
“I think that’s my first time ever doing that one in a game,” Lombard said. “I was in trouble, had to figure something out, and it just kind of happened.”
Manager Aaron Boone had a front-row view of both the panic and the payoff on the wild pitch. His reaction tracked the play in real time.
“My first thought on the ricochet was, ‘Oh, no,'” Boone said. “Then it was just a really good athletic play by the old soccer player.”
An October blueprint
The most encouraging part for New York was who did the damage. With Aaron Judge sidelined by a calf strain, the Yankees leaned on a different cast. Austin Wells homered. Paul Goldschmidt delivered the tying single in the seventh. Lombard supplied the rest.
That is a departure from the Judge-or-bust script that has defined the offense for years. The Yankees improved to 11-8 when tied through seven innings, a sign of a lineup that can still finish without its centerpiece.
The comeback also carried a caveat worth stating plainly. New York lost seven of 13 meetings with the Rays this season, so one late rally against backup arms is not proof of a matchup solved. But it is a template. Work the starter, survive to the bullpen, and pounce.
A rookie writing his name beside Mantle
At 21 years and 114 days, Lombard became the second-youngest player in Yankees history to hit a go-ahead home run in the eighth inning or later, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
The only Yankee younger to do it was Mickey Mantle, who hit a go-ahead grand slam on July 29, 1952, at 20 years and 283 days. For a rookie preparing for his first postseason, the timing could hardly be sharper.
Lombard has caught fire at the perfect moment, slashing .310/.326/.643 since Sept. 14. Boone has watched the confidence grow by the day.
“He’s got power. He’s a strong kid,” Boone said. “The ball he hit to left field was absolutely scalded, and then a no-doubter on the home run. It’s really good to see that.”
Rotation questions linger into the weekend
The Yankees rested for October even in victory. Cam Schlittler, the likely AL Cy Young Award winner, threw just three innings and 70 pitches, allowing two runs, as the club lined him up for the wild-card round.
New York, now 92-67, has clinched a home wild-card series that will likely open Tuesday against the Red Sox, who had not formally locked the fifth seed. Left-hander Luis Gil was optioned and will not be on the wild-card roster despite two innings of one-unearned-run relief.
The infield remains unsettled. Anthony Volpe started at second and went 0-for-3 with a walk, and the Yankees are still weighing their third-base plan against Boston’s lefty-heavy staff. For one night, though, a rookie’s legs and bat made the picture look a lot brighter.
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