Rays rout Yanks
NEW YORK — After 161 games, the New York Yankees still need one more victory.
No simple task against Brandon Lowe and a 100-win Tampa Bay team that’s a consistent thorn in their side.
Lowe hit three home runs and the Rays rolled to a 12-2 blowout of New York that prevented the Yankees from clinching a playoff spot Saturday. Instead, they fell into a tie with Boston atop the AL wild-card standings.
With a chance to pitch his team into the postseason, New York starter Jordan Montgomery instead was rocked for a career-worst seven earned runs in 2 2/3 innings. He gave up a pair of three-run homers to Lowe, who also went deep in the seventh against Michael King.
Even with the embarrassing defeat before a booing home crowd of 41,648, the streaky Yankees (91-70) can still punch their AL wild-card ticket Sunday with a victory over Tampa Bay in the scheduled regular-season finale.
Another loss, and it gets dicey.
“We’ve got to win. It’s as simple as that,” veteran outfielder Brett Gardner said. “Here we are going into Game 162 not knowing what the future is.
“It’s not ideal. But it’s nice knowing that we still have a chance,” he added. “The way the season has gone, it kind of makes sense that it would come down to the very last day. Seems about right.”
New York is assured at least a tiebreaker game next week that could put the team in the playoffs for the fifth straight season. But after dropping the first two games of this series, the Yankees no longer control their own destiny to host the wild-card game. Now they need a Boston loss to do so.
The Red Sox beat Washington 5-3 to draw even with the Yankees. Toronto is one game behind them, with Seattle potentially in the postseason mix heading into Sunday.
“Just a bad day for us and we’ve got to get over it quickly,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
Lowe batted in the eighth with an opportunity to match the major league record of four home runs in a game. He evaded a 93 mph fastball from Joely Rodríguez that was way inside, then grounded out to first base.
Lowe and Mike Zunino homered back-to-back off Montgomery (6-7) in the third to make it 7-1. Austin Meadows added a three-run shot in the seventh as the AL East champion Rays (100-61) reached 100 wins for the first time in team history.
“Very big. Pretty special,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said. “So proud of the guys, happy for them — 100 sounds better than 99.”
The defending American League champions, who already wrapped up homefield advantage throughout the AL playoffs, had never before been 39 games over .500.
Zunino, Randy Arozarena and Wander Franco had three hits apiece for the small-budget Rays, who outhit New York 19-4 and are undoubtedly determined to make things difficult on their big-spending rivals all weekend.