ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Yankees finally got the elusive big hit in the eighth inning Saturday night, then delivered another two innings later.
But it was all for naught, making their fourth straight loss even more crushing.
After José Caballero put the Yankees ahead in the eighth and 10th innings with clutch hits, the Yankees gave it right back in the bottom of each frame, with the Rays scoring a pair of runs in the bottom of the 10th to secure a 5-4 walk-off win at Tropicana Field.
The Rays dropped a pair of bunts against David Bednar to tie the game — the first a single by the speedy Chandler Simpson to put runners on the corners before Taylor Walls laid down another between the mound and first base, on which Bednar’s throw to the plate was late as the automatic runner scored to tie it.
The Yankees then intentionally walked Yandy Díaz to load the bases with no outs and brought Cody Bellinger in as the fifth infielder. Bednar struck out Hunter Feduccia for the first out but then Jonathan Aranda hit a chopper that got over the head of Bellinger, playing on the grass at second base. Jazz Chisholm Jr. was behind him in double-play depth but bobbled the ball — costing him his only chance of pulling off an inning-ending double play if he had tagged Díaz, who was running to second, and then thrown to first.
Instead, Chisholm had to go to his knees to collect the ball, and could only muster a throw to first as Simpson raced home from third, setting off a Rays celebration.
“The best thing I was going to try to do is to swing at [Díaz] and hopefully he backed out of the line and they call him out of the baseline and throw it to first base and get that double play,” said Chisholm, who also wondered aloud if he could have thrown to first and then tried to get Díaz out at second — “I don’t know what the rule is,” he said, only to be told by teammate Trent Grisham a few lockers down that it wouldn’t have mattered because Simpson would have scored first.
The dizzying sequence just made a frustrating week even more so, especially on a night when the Yankees (8-6) left 12 men on base and went 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position.
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“We know we’re way better than this,” said Caballero, who had put the Yankees up 4-3 with a two-out RBI single in the top of the 10th. “We just need to continue working and get better and look forward to [Sunday’s] game.”
Max Fried strong across eight innings of work, though was left kicking himself for giving up runs in the second and eighth innings immediately after the Yankees had taken a lead in the top half.
The Yankees trailed 2-1 with one out in the top of the eighth when Caballero, in the midst of a 1-for-30 skid, came up with two outs and runners on second and third. He took issue with home plate umpire Shane Livensparger over a discrepancy with being set in the box with enough time on the pitch clock — which Aaron Boone had to run out to make sure it did not turn into something bigger. After cooling off, Caballero smoked a double to the left field corner that scored both runs for the 3-2 lead.
But the advantage was short lived. Rays catcher Nick Fortes led off the bottom of the inning with a double to the gap before Simpson pinch ran. Taylor Walls bunted Simpson to third, at which point Boone visited the mound for a chat with Fried, who talked his way into staying in the game.
With the infield in, Díaz hit a perfectly placed chopper between Ben Rice and Chisholm. Rice jumped to his right to snare it, but had no play at the plate as Simpson raced home to tie it.
“I thought for the most part, the guys did enough to win tonight and when it came down to it, the two times where I needed to go out there and put a shutdown inning, I kind of let up the momentum,” Fried said. “It’s frustrating. That’s definitely on me.”
The Yankees then stranded runners on the corners in the top of the ninth when Randal Grichuk — whom Boone did not pinch hit for against righty Hunter Bigge despite having Paul Goldschmidt and J.C. Escarra on the bench — flew out.
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Austin Wells homered in the second inning for the early 1-0 lead, but that was the only time the Yankees left the park as they again were held in check offensively.
“It sucks,” Chisholm said. “Coming out, working hard to get back out front. Tough loss. They played good and did good baserunning, hit at the right times. We didn’t. We’ll get better with that as the season goes on, but at the same time, we didn’t execute today. We left what, [12] runners on base? Once we do a better job of that, it’s going to come around when we come around.”
