TAMPA – The Yankees bullpen, who was asked to work overtime over the weekend, was delivered in a big way up to nine innings on Saturday.
That’s when the four-run lead went into a tie game at the hands of Devin Williams, giving way to a gut punch that lost in 10 innings.
After the Yankees wasted runners in the corner and wasted outs on the top of the 10th, the Rays roamed it at the bottom of the innings.
The crushing losses have turned down the Yankees’ five-game winning streak, ruining what was otherwise a strong weekend for the bullpen.
The ninth Raise Rally began with the first one when Jose Caballero reached 3 base from the infield and reached second on Oswald Cabrera’s high-slow.
Williams then hurt himself by walking No. 9 batsman Ben Rothvevet on five pitches, and handed over the orders to Chandler Simpson.
Yandy Díaz came next and hit a soft chopper and made a short stop for another infield single that made it 8-6.
After Díaz stole second on the first pitch to Brandon Lowe, Lowe delivered a Bloop single to center, scoring two runs to tie the game with eight.
Here, Williams changed a simple save on Thursday night and gave up nine runs (8 innings) in his first nine appearances (8 innings) with the Yankees.
Carlos Carrasco kept a 6-4 lead after just four innings, followed by Ian Hamilton (two innings), Mark Reiter Jr. and Luke Weaver pitched four shutout innings together to keep him on a 6-4 lead.
Judge Aaron and Paul Goldschmidt added an RBI single to the ninth top to make it 8-4. This proved important at the bottom of the frame.
The judge concluded the 3 RBI effort, 5-3.
Will Warren also got off to a short start on Thursday, so the Yankees bullpen had to cover 15¹/₃ innings throughout the first three games of the series.
Before he reached Williams in the ninth, he had allowed only two runs during that stretch.
Aside from the Rays (9-12) changed the 6-1 game from Carrasco to 6-4 before the 9th inning, the Yankees’ biggest concern on Saturday was Ben Rice’s health.
Hot Hit DH hit the pitch in his left elbow in four innings and went to the local hospital for an x-ray and CT scan. For now, the team is calling it a left elbow consy.
The Yankees knocked Shane Buzz out of the game after just 3¹/₃ innings, throwing 83 pitches to get over 18 batters and pushing five runs against him.
The offensive attack started from the start as the Yankees loaded the base without an out in the first inning and turned it into two runs.
Goldschmidt drove on one, grounded a double play on Sircus, and short stop Caballero made a slide stop, knocked down the ball and hiked his foot for the second.
Jazz Chisholm Jr., who joined the game on a 4-42 skid (on the looming suspension appealing to post on social media after Thursday’s discharge), came next, picking the middle to make it 2-0.
Trent Grisham extended his lead to 3-0 in two innings when he led on his fifth home run of the season. Grisham’s bats are known for more in his defense, and Boone was forced to bring him into the lineup more frequently earlier this season, with left-handed batsmen still being delivered.
The Rays snapped a scoreless streak for 17 innings in the series. Diaz hit an RBI single with two outs in the three innings to make it 3-1.
However, the Yankees tacked three more runs at the top of the fourth.
Jasson Domínguez and Cabrera pulled out one walk from Baz before bailiff Manuel Rodríguez loaded the base by slamming the rice.
The judge came next and delivered the bloop two-run single before Austin Wells hit a sacrifice fly to extend the lead to 6-1.
