The Yankees arrived at Yankee Stadium knowing there was no margin left, but their October ended Wednesday with a 4-3 Game 3 loss to the Rays and a three-game sweep in the American League Division Series. Tampa Bay celebrated another clincher in the Bronx while New York’s 93-win season, which had begun in the postseason with a decisive Wild Card Series sweep of Boston, closed without a trip to the ALCS.
Key takeaways
- The Rays completed a 3-0 ALDS sweep, only the second best-of-five postseason sweep suffered by the Yankees in franchise history.
- Victor Mesa Jr.’s go-ahead homer off Max Fried proved to be the deciding blow.
- A sixth-inning fan-interference review changed Anthony Volpe’s apparent tying homer into a double and sent George Lombard Jr. home.
- Ben Rice and Spencer Jones delivered RBI hits as New York twice answered early Tampa Bay leads.
- The Yankees’ World Series title drought has reached 17 seasons, with their last championship coming in 2009.
A late review and an earlier hanging pitch
There was no pregame gathering or dramatic clubhouse address required. The Yankees understood the assignment: extend the series or begin an early offseason. They played with that urgency at times, but the Rays again found the cleaner path through a tight game.
Fried worked 5 2/3 innings and allowed four runs. Jonathan Aranda put Tampa Bay ahead in the third with an RBI single, though the inning ended when Taylor Walls was caught in a rundown between third and home. New York answered in its half of the inning when Ben Rice lined a run-scoring single against Nick Martinez.
The Rays moved back in front in the fourth. Ryan Vilade drove a solo shot toward right field, just clearing a leaping Spencer Jones. Statcast indicated that Yankee Stadium was the only Major League ballpark where Vilade’s drive would have gone out.
New York came back again in the bottom of the fourth. Volpe reached when he sent a comebacker into Martinez, and Jones followed against Ian Seymour with an RBI double that brought Volpe around from first.
The pivotal Tampa Bay swing came on Fried’s final pitch. Mesa turned on a hanging sweeper and sent it into the right-center seats for the go-ahead homer, a costly miss from the left-hander in a game where every run carried October weight.
The Yankees had one more opening in the sixth. Volpe drove a ball toward left that initially appeared to clear the wall for a game-tying home run over Mesa. Mesa immediately signaled toward the seats, where the ball had hit a fan’s hands. After a crew-chief review, officials ruled that the spectator had reached beyond the wall and interfered with the play.
Instead of a tying homer, Lombard was awarded the run and Volpe was placed at second with a double. The announced crowd of 48,865 erupted in protest, and debris briefly had to be removed from the warning track before play resumed. Jones then struck out to end the inning, leaving the Yankees short of the equalizer they believed they had found.
Rays remain the matchup New York could not solve
Tampa Bay had been a persistent problem all year. The Yankees finished 4 1/2 games behind the Rays in the AL East and lost seven of their 13 regular-season meetings. In the division series, the gap widened: Tampa Bay’s aggressive baserunning and pressure on the Yankees’ defense showed up repeatedly.
New York managed only one hit in the Game 1 defeat at Tropicana Field, then made four errors in Game 2. The Yankees finished 2-7 at the Rays’ home park this season when postseason games are included.
The sweep carries an unusual place in club history. Before this series, the Yankees had been swept in a best-of-five postseason set only once, when Kansas City took the 1980 American League Championship Series.
For the second time in 15 days, the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium belonged to a Rays celebration. Tampa Bay now advances to the ALCS and will await the winner of the White Sox-Guardians Division Series. The Yankees, meanwhile, head into another winter with the Canyon of Heroes parade from 2009 looking increasingly distant.
