Tampa Bay did not try to reinvent its approach against Cam Schlittler. The Rays trusted the pressure game that carried them through the season, turned Yankees mistakes into an early run, then broke Game 2 open with a four-run fifth inning for a 5-2 victory at Tropicana Field.
Key takeaways
- The Rays beat the Yankees 5-2 and moved ahead 2-0 in the American League Division Series.
- A four-run fifth inning knocked Schlittler from the game and supplied Tampa Bay’s decisive margin.
- Yandy Díaz, Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero helped create the first-inning run after New York committed two defensive errors.
- Left-hander Ian Seymour handled much of the work as manager Kevin Cash worked through the late innings.
- Game 3 shifts to Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night, with Tampa Bay carrying a chance to finish the series.
Rays turn routine pressure into a big inning
Schlittler arrived as the American League Cy Young Award favorite and looked like the sort of pitcher built for a postseason road assignment. Tampa Bay’s answer was simple: keep doing the things that had worked all year.
“Just kind of do what we’ve been doing all year,” shortstop Taylor Walls said before the game.
That identity showed up immediately. Díaz reached when Yankees third baseman Ryan McMahon made an error. Aranda followed with a single, moving Díaz to second, and Caminero put a ground ball in play. New York attempted to make a double play, but the throw got away, allowing Díaz to score.
The early run was not flashy, but it set the tone. The Rays made the Yankees defend, and New York again had trouble converting routine chances behind Schlittler.
The pivotal fifth followed the same formula with bigger consequences. Two members of Tampa Bay’s Big Three delivered key hits to begin the tiebreaking rally, then the lower portion of the order kept the inning alive by putting balls in play against a defense that could not cleanly finish the job. By the end of the frame, the Rays had scored four times, Schlittler had been removed, and Tampa Bay owned a 5-2 lead.
A commanding series position
Cash then turned to Seymour and began collecting outs with Game 3 already in view. The left-hander covered a significant share of the remaining work as the Rays protected the three-run cushion in front of a sellout crowd of 40,226.
The history attached to a 2-0 lead in a best-of-five set is overwhelming. Clubs that have taken the first two games have advanced 83 times in 93 tries, an 89 percent rate. In Division Series played under the current 2-2-1 format, teams winning the opening two games at home have captured the series 33 out of 36 times.
There is recent Yankees history on the other side of that equation. New York erased an 0-2 deficit against Cleveland in the 2017 ALDS, the most recent comeback from two games down in a best-of-five postseason matchup.
For now, though, the Rays have the edge and the momentum as the series heads north. Game 3 is scheduled for Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET at Yankee Stadium, with Tampa Bay one win from advancing.
