The Yankees have lost two out of their first three games to the Rays
After winning Friday’s game, the Yankees lost on Saturday and Sunday afternoon at Yankees Stadium. After losing their last two games, the Yankees are in position to lose the series unless they win on Monday.
The Yankees started the season going 4–2 against the Rays but in their last six games the Yankees have gone just 2–4 against the Rays. The Yankees played the Rays in a 3-game series the second to last series before the All-Star break. After Sunday’s loss, the Yankees are 10–21 since June 13 and only the Chicago White Sox, who are 27–74, at 10–22 are worse since June 13.
The Yankees got off to a promising start on Friday with a 6–1 victory but could not keep up the momentum the rest of the series. Gerrit Cole allowed just one run in 6.0 innings and that came on a solo homer. Cole allowed six hits and one walk in his 6.0 innings and had eight strikeouts.
Cole had a 6.75 ERA after his first four starts this season but his ERA is now a much improved 4.60 after allowing one run in 6.0 innings in each of his last two starts. In his last two starts he has been pitching like he did last season when he won the AL Cy Young with a 2.63 ERA in 33 starts.
On offense, Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and Anthony Volpe combined for eight of the team’s nine hits. Soto went 4–4 with three runs scored, Judge went 2–4 with a run scored and an RBI and Volpe went 2–4 with three RBI.
The Yankees took a commanding 4–0 lead in the third inning on Volpe’s 3-run double. Soto then doubled in the fourth inning and got a little league homer since he scored after second baseman Richie Palacios’s error. Palacios grew up in Brooklyn and went to high school at Berkeley Carroll in Park Slope. Palacios went 1–4 with a steal in this game and has a solid .347 OBP in his 80 games after going 1–4 with a homer in Sunday’s series finale.
A troubling trend started in Friday’s game. The Yankees went just 2–11 with runners in scoring position. On Saturday the Yankees went 0–7 with runners in scoring position in their 9–1 loss and on Sunday the Yankees went 2–10 with runners in scoring position in their 6–4 loss. This means that the Yankees have gone 4–28 in the first three games of the series.
In Saturday’s afternoon game, the Yankees faced a starting pitcher who had been dominating for more than a month and continued dominating in this game. Going into Saturday, in his seven starts since June 8, Taj Bradley had an outstanding 0.99 ERA. His ERA in his last eight starts is now even lower since he threw 7.0 scoreless innings while only allowing one hit.
He was selected by the Rays in the fifth round in the 2018 draft out of high school in Georgia and is in his second MLB season. Bradley has the best ERA in MLB since June 8.
No Yankee had a multi-hit game on Saturday and the offense only had five hits the entire game. The six through nine hitters in the lineup went a combined 1–12. The only run the Yankees scored was an RBI ground out by Jahmai Jones in the ninth inning to prevent the Yankees from getting shutout for the seventh time this season.
The Rays offense has struggled overall this season since they are 13th out of the 15 teams in the AL in runs scored but they are 16–8 against lefties this season since they won Saturday’s game with Nestor Cortes not pitching well. Only two teams have a better record against lefties this season
The Rays, who have scored three runs or fewer in 50 of their games this season, scored six earned runs against Cortes on Saturday. Cortes allowed eight hits, two walks and one home run. It is very surprising that Cortes struggled in this game since he had a 1.81 ERA in 10 starts at Yankee Stadium this season going into Saturday’s game.
The bullpen in relief of Cortes allowed three earned runs in 4.2 innings. In the previous games the bullpen had a 1.84 ERA. Even though the Yankees had been improved in the bullpen recently, Brian Cashman will still need to acquire at least two swing and miss impact relief pitchers before the trade deadline.
A pivotal point in the game was in the fourth inning when Cortes did not pitch well to two batters who are not having good seasons at the plate this season. Cortes walked Taylor Walls, who has a .160 average and a .286 OBP in 30 games this season, to put runners on first and second with two outs. Alex Jackson, who has been even worse as he has a .091 average and a .156 OBP in 38 games this season, hit a 3-run homer to score Walls and Jose Caballero to make the score 4–0 Rays.
The Rays are 13th out of 15 teams in the AL in homers this season but hit four homers on Saturday against the Yankees. Jackson had his second homer of the season. Isaac Paredes, who is a possible trade target for the Yankees and would make their infield better, hit a homer in the fifth. Randy Arozarena, who has hit well against the Yankees the last few seasons, hit a solo homer and a 2-run homer in this game. The four Rays homers accounted for seven of their nine runs.
Volpe had a 3-run double on Friday and then had a double to right center to wall in 8th inning with one out. He had the approach he had in beginning of the season. A positive sign from the first three games after the All-Star break is Volpe is 4–10 with two doubles and three RBI. In his previous eight games, he was just 4–30 with two extra base hits. Volpe had two steals in Sunday’s game after not having a steal in any of his previous 28 games.
DJ LeMahieu struck out looking on a two seam fastball and then got booed by the fans again for his struggles. Ben Rice then struck out swinging on a 93 mph fastball to end the eighth inning.
The sacrifice groundout to third that scored Juan Soto after his triple to leadoff the ninth inning that Siri barely missed in center meant the Yankees did not get shutout. Carlos Narvaez then hit after spending eight seasons in Yankees minor leagues. His minor league career started all the way back in 2016. He hit a ground ball single through right side of infield for his first MLB hit, which is great milestone for him. Oswaldo Cabrera hit into a routine double play to end the game and even the series at one.
Cortes had dominated at home this season but flat out did not have it in this start which spelled trouble for Yankees.
LeMahieu’s was benched on Sunday since he is in a big time slump even though he said he is healthy. (It seemed like he would be benched for a few games but he is back in the lineup on Monday.) He has a not good .177 batting average through 39 games, he went 0–3 with two strikeouts on Saturday and in his last six games he is 0–17 with just one walk and five strikeouts. He only has three extra base hits and zero homers in his 39 games this season. Since June 21, in 21 games played, LeMahieiu has a low .156 average (10–64)
LeMahieu has a .177 average, a .270 OBP, a .471 OPS and a 36 OPS+. It would be an improvement and the Yankees would sign up for it if he even had the mediocre .243 average, .327 OBP, .718 OPS and 96 OPS+ he had last season. He has really fallen off a cliff from when he led the league with his .364 average, .421 OBP, 1.011 OPS and 178 OPS+ in 2020. He might just be declining because he is 36 years old and in his 14th MLB season.
“It doesn’t give you much hope, the last month or so,’’ LeMahieu said of his struggle to find any rhythm at the plate.
“But as long as I’ve played this game, whatever challenges present itself, I’ve always come out of it one way or another,’’ LeMahieu said before Sunday afternoon’s game. “Keep showing up, keep working’’ toward success.
Another player who has been struggling is Alex Verdugo. Verdugo has a .228 average, a .284 OBP and an 82 OPS+ in 97 games this season. Verdugo has gone 0–11 in these three games against the Rays with two strikeouts and zero walks and in his last 10 games he is just 3–39 with just two walks and eight strikeouts. His average has gone down from .246 to .228 and his OBP had gone down from .302 to .284 in those 10 games.
In Sunday afternoon’s game, the Rays won 6–4 with Caballero and Jose Siri combining to drive in four of the Rays six runs. Caballero had an RBI single in the 4th inning and a solo homer in the ninth to give the Rays a 6–3 lead. Siri had a 2-run homer in the seventh inning to give the Rays a 5–0 lead.
Arozarena had a solo homer in the fourth inning to give the Rays a 2–0 lead and he has done a lot of damage in the first three games of the series. He is 6–13 with three runs scored, two doubles, three homers and four RBI in the three games. Arozarena came into this month with a low .196 average but he has a very good .293 average with six doubles, four homers and seven RBI in 15 games this month.
Marcus Stroman allowed two earned runs with five hits in 5.1 innings. Both of his earned runs came on solo homers. He has now allowed two earned runs or less in each of his last two starts after allowing five earned runs in 5.0 innings in his first start in July. He was surprisingly taken out of the game after just 5.1 innings and 87 pitches.
Soto and Aaron Judge combined to drive in all of the team’s runs in this game. Soto was 3–5 with an RBI and Judge was 2–4 with a homer and three RBI. Judge hit his 3-run homer in the 7th to get the Yankees on the scoreboard and end the shutout. He crushed the ball hitting it 444 feet.
Judge is first in MLB in homers (35), RBI (89), he is second in total bases (240) behind only Shohei Ohtani, he is first in OBP (.436), he is first in SLG%, he is first in OPS (1.116) and first in WAR (6.6). Judge is sixth in average (.309), second in walks in MLB and first in the AL in OPS+ at a very impressive 208, with 100 being league average. Soto leads the league with his 80 walks, he is fifth in the AL in average (.307), he is tied for fourth in the AL in homers (23), he is tied for fourth in the AL in RBI (67), he is second in the AL in OBP behind Judge, he is second in the AL in OPS behind Judge and his WAR is fifth best in the AL. Judge would win the AL MVP as of now and Soto would for sure finish in the top five.
“I think we’re kind of losing sight of how incredible those two guys have been,” Stroman said after the game about Judge and Soto. “So they can’t do everything each and every single time. We can’t put all the pressure on them.”
Cabrera did go 2–4 with a run scored and a stolen base in this game and will be starting at third while LeMahieu is benched. In Cabrera’s 11 games in July he has a very good .318 average and a .385 OBP. In Cabrera’s last nine games, his average is even better since he is .438 (7–16) to raise his average from .227 to .242. He has earned more regular at-bats instead of LeMahieu.
The bullpen struggled again on Sunday allowing three earned runs in 3.2 innings. Jake Cousins allowed two earned runs with a hit, a walk and a homer in 0.2 innings and Luke Weaver allowed an earned run on a solo homer in 1.2 innings. The Yankees would have won the game if Cousins and Weaver held the Rays scoreless.
Cousins, who is longtime NFL QB Kirk Cousins’s cousin, allowed two earned runs in this game after allowing just two earned runs in his first 11 games with the Yankees. His ERA went up from 1.35 to 2.57 in this game.
Aaron Boone got ejected in the series finale after Verdugo was called out on strikes on what was clearly a ball. That was his 38th ejection in his career. He passed Bud Black for the third most ejections of any active manager. Black has his 37 in 2,493 games and Boone has his 38 in 971 games.
