RAYS’D & CONFUSED
Yanks look lost again as late rally flames out
Bases loaded, no one out and down by two runs in the bottom of the ninth.
Not even these Yankees could come away with nothing.
But instead of one more late-inning hit and a potential game-changing rally, the Yankees didn’t score another run.
Meet the second-half Yankees, who lost 3-1 to the Rays on Thursday in The Bronx, to fall to 13-13 since the AllStar break, including 7-9 this month.
After nearly two days of flailing at the plate against Tampa Bay, the Yankees, whose run of average play extends to 25-24 over their past 49 games, finally seemed to wake up in the last two innings — when they trailed by three runs.
They came up with a run in the eighth and then knocked out Sergio Romo an inning later after filling the bases with singles by Didi Gregorius and Gleyber Torres and a walk to Neil Walker.
That brought up Greg Bird, stuck in a miserable slump and booed off the field after grounding out to end the seventh.
Bird popped out in foul territory against lefty Adam Kolarek for the first out.
“It was on the plate, but a little in,” Bird said. “What are you gonna do?”
Brett Gardner and Austin Romine followed with strikeouts to end it.
It dropped the Yankees to 4-4 on an 11-game homestand and sent them to a seasonhigh 10½ games behind the idle Red Sox in the AL East in a divisional race that increasingly appears to be over.
“It’s disappointing,’’ Aaron Boone said of the ninth inning. “We had some opportunities, and when you’re not scoring runs in bunches or hitting the ball out of the ballpark, you’ve got to take advantage of those and that one got away [from] us.”
Instead, a day after going hitless in nine at-bats with runners in scoring position, the Yankees went just 1-for-11.
That meant the two runs Masahiro Tanaka allowed in the top of the first were enough for Tampa Bay against a team that is missing Aaron Judge (wrist) and Gary Sanchez (groin) more than ever.
Tanaka had trouble with his splitter in the first, unable to keep it down in the zone, and the Rays opened the game with four straight hits.
Unlike his last outing, when Tanaka gave up six runs — and three homers — he recovered and didn’t allow another run in his six innings.
Blake Snell, in his third start since a DL stint caused by shoulder fatigue, had given up more than one run just once in his previous seven starts. The Yankees, though, drilled Snell in two previous starts against them this season.
Snell was removed after 76 pitches — and five scoreless innings.
The Yankees stayed within striking distance before the Rays added an unearned run off David Robertson in the eighth.
In the bottom of the inning, Giancarlo Stanton doubled in Aaron Hicks from second with two outs on a play that was ruled a home run and then a foul ball by first-base umpire Greg Gibson, who appeared to be watching a different game for much of the day.
After a review, it was called a double to bring the Yankees within 3-1.
But Miguel Andujar grounded out to keep the Yankees down by two.
It was the ninth that the Yankees will really recall with regret, when they were set up for a potential gamechanging rally.
Bird swung at the first pitch, an approach Boone was fine with: “Left-on-left, you’re in hit mode.”
Gardner, who replaced the overmatched Shane Robinson in the eighth and Romine, who was in for Kyle Higashioka, both whiffed.
That brings in Toronto, as the Yankees sit just three games ahead of Oakland for the second wild card, something Boone insists is not on his mind.
“I pay attention to the sport and I know what’s going on, but I’m not thinking about what other teams ahead or behind [us are doing],’’ Boone said. “That’s just, frankly, a waste of time. We’ve got to get after it. We’ve got to get after the Blue Jays. That is my focus. That is the team’s focus.”