ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The kind of inning that only existed in the Yankees’ hopes and dreams over the last three weeks finally happened in the flesh on Thursday afternoon.
That it came against one of the best pitchers in baseball who had shut them out in two starts earlier this season, well, that’s baseball, Suzyn.
Whatever the Yankees offered up as a sacrifice during their hitters’ meeting Thursday morning, it worked, as their bats finally broke out of an extended slumber for a six-run third against Drew Rasmussen fueled a 12-4 win over the Rays to salvage a series split at Tropicana Field.
The six runs the Yankees (51-42) scored in the third inning were more than they had scored in any full game since June 17, after which they entered a 5-15 tailspin entering Thursday. But at least for a day, they made good use of their bats to finish the four-game set on a high note and get back within four games of the Rays (54-37) for first place in the AL East.
On a day that began with Brian Cashman acknowledging that “the storm is upon us right now,” and giving votes of confidence to both manager Aaron Boone and hitting coach James Rowson, the Yankees snapped out of their offensive malaise with 14 hits while piecing together a bullpen game, as seven relievers did enough to get by.
Ben Rice clubbed a pair of home runs — giving him six in his last nine games and 28 on the year — and Austin Wells added his first since May 22, finally signs of life from the catcher in the midst of a brutal offensive season.
But the at-bat of the game belonged to Ryan McMahon, putting the long-awaited rally in motion.
Rasmussen, the Rays All-Star who had thrown 13 shutout innings against the Yankees this season entering Thursday, retired the first six batters on 26 pitches before Max Schuemann led off the third inning with a double.
McMahon then engaged in a battle with Rasmussen, including fouling off seven pitches on the way to a full count before roping a double down the right field line to tie the game at one.
Wells followed by flying out, but the next five Yankees all reached on hits to knock Rasmussen out of the game in improbable fashion. Trent Grisham doubled, Rice clubbed a two-run shot, Jasson Domínguez and the badly slumping Cody Bellinger hit back-to-back infield singles and José Caballero added a single through the open right side on a hit-and-run for the 5-1 lead.
After Rasmussen hit the showers, Jazz Chisholm Jr. capped off the inning with a sacrifice fly to make it 6-1.
Of course, given how things have gone for the Yankees lately, it did not all come easy from there.
Jake Bird took over for opener Paul Blackburn and, fresh off getting the big lead, walked the leadoff man in the bottom of the third. That gave way to the Rays getting two runs back, but Ryan Yarbrough came in to clean up the mess.
But the Yankees continued to pile on, as Wells went deep — off a lefty, to boot — in the fourth inning, Rice crushed a three-run shot in the sixth, McMahon added another RBI double in the seventh and Bellinger finished things off with an RBI single in the eighth.
