TAMPA, Fla. -- “Must-win” and “urgency” were a couple of the words that echoed through the Rays’ clubhouse heading into Tuesday’s game against the Yankees at George M. Steinbrenner Field.
Sitting six and a half games out of a Wild Card spot with 37 games remaining and with only two opportunities left this season to beat their division rival -- who is also one of the teams they are chasing for a Wild Card -- the Rays knew they needed to put up a fight in this series opener.
Instead, Tampa Bay suffered an early knockout in a game that featured a bit of ignominious history. The Rays served up nine home runs in the 13-3 defeat, setting a franchise record for most homers allowed in a single game.
“Disheartening, that’s a good word,” manager Kevin Cash said of the loss. “It’s frustrating. The guys are frustrated. We’re all frustrated.”
The start of the contest was delayed for nearly two hours by rain, but soon after the first pitch was thrown at 9:30 p.m. ET, the Yankees began delivering body blows to right-hander Shane Baz.
With one out in the first inning, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger went deep off of cutters from Baz immediately before Giancarlo Stanton smoked a four-seam fastball out to right-center. It was the first time the Rays had surrendered back-to-back-to-back homers since June 20, 2018, versus the Astros.
"[The Yankees] came in and capitalized on any pitch that was a quality pitch or a mistake pitch,” Cash said. “It looked like early on with Shane, he was leaving some pitches that were catching a lot of the white to the wrong hitters.”
Baz’s issues with the long ball persisted past the opening inning. José Caballero, playing against his former club for the first time since the Rays traded him to the Yankees midgame on July 31, got to the right-hander for a two-run shot in the second on yet another cutter.
Through the first three months of the season, hitters went just 2-for-18 with eight strikeouts against Baz’s cutter. As he has leaned on it more often recently, the results have gone in the opposite direction. Entering Tuesday, batters had a .358 average and a .604 slugging percentage in 57 plate appearances ending on Baz’s cutters since the start of July. Then the Yankees picked up four more hits in five at-bats on cutters, including those three homers.
"I think if you watch it, it’s pretty cut and dry: It’s just over the middle of the plate,” Baz said when asked about the issue with that particular offering. “Those pitches are easy to hit. They are easy to lift.”
Once Jazz Chisholm Jr. deposited a knuckle-curve over the right-field wall in the third inning, Baz became the fifth starter in Rays history to give up at least five homers in a game.
And his home stadium continues to feel like anything but. Sixty-eight pitchers have thrown a minimum of 60 innings at home this season. Baz has the worst ERA (7.06), the highest OPS against (.888) and the most dingers allowed (18) of that group.
Asked to sum up his outing, the Rays’ starter was succinct: “Pretty bad.”
Once Baz exited after three innings, left-hander Ian Seymour entered and promptly permitted back-to-back homers to Stanton and Ben Rice to make it a 10-2 game in the fourth. Bellinger then got to Seymour for his second homer of the night in the sixth, and Caballero collected the Yankees’ ninth homer with a solo shot in the ninth, giving the light-hitting infielder the first multihomer game of his three-year career.
"It's special to come to a place that I've been playing for a couple of seasons and have this kind of performance,” Caballero said. “It's really nice."
The nine homers allowed by Rays pitching topped the previous club record of eight, which was set during a 17-11 victory against the Blue Jays on Aug. 7, 2010.
"It’s certainly a game that you’d like to move past as quick as possible,” Cash said.
Perhaps that was the lone bit of good news on this night for the Rays. They could turn the page to tomorrow the moment as the final out was recorded because, since it was 12:25 a.m., tomorrow was already here.