Yankees' slim AL East hopes end as Rays clinch division with win in Game 2 of doubleheader
The Yankees’ Aaron Judge looks on from the dugout during the seventh inning against the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 2 of a split doubleheader at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Yankees kept their razor-thin AL East title hopes alive Tuesday afternoon with a victory over the Rays in the first game of a doubleheader, temporarily blocking their division rival from celebrating a crown on the Stadium field.
But only for a few hours.
Throttled, as they almost always are by Rays righthander Drew Rasmussen, the Yankees fell, 6-1, in the nightcap in front of 38,656.
“It’s never good. You don’t want anyone to be celebrating at your stadium,” said Max Fried, who took the loss after allowing four runs and six hits over 6 2⁄3 innings (righty John Schreiber allowed two inherited runners to score in the seventh). “Hopefully it’s not the last time we face them.”
The loss locked the Yankees (90-67) into what had seemed inevitable for weeks: hosting the best-of-three Wild Card Series at the Stadium starting next Tuesday. That was sealed in the second game when they were outhit 11-3.
The Yankees are all but guaranteed to play the Red Sox, and they will almost certainly be missing three-time AL MVP Aaron Judge.
That, too, seemed all but a certainty once Judge went to the injured list over the weekend with a right calf strain, with manager Aaron Boone confirming as much late Tuesday morning.
“We’re planning on him not being a part of that,” Boone said before the first game, a 2-0 Yankees victory made possible by eight scoreless innings from Carlos Rodon and a two-run homer from Cody Bellinger.
The Rays (96-51), who saw Rasmussen take a no-hitter into the seventh inning before Heliot Ramos led off with a double and later scored on a two-out RBI single by George Lombard Jr. off Kevin Kelly, await the wild-card winner in the Division Series.
Rasmussen (16-5), who entered Tuesday 4-2 with a 1.87 ERA against the Yankees, allowed one run in 6 2⁄3 innings with 11 strikeouts.
Judge’s availability for a potential ALDS showdown against the Rays appears questionable at best.
Boone said Judge has a “moderate” calf strain, declining to reveal the grade of the strain. Usually, such injuries are categorized as either Grade 1, 2 or 3, with a 1 being the least severe (though Grade 1 strains still take, in best-case scenarios, several weeks to heal). The Yankees, of course, as an organization know whether it is a Grade 1, 2 or 3, but currently are choosing not to say.
“You hear all the time with injuries, we give ranges, two to four weeks, four to six weeks, all these things,” Boone said. “They’re ranges for a reason and we’re at a point in the year where, obviously, we push it a little bit if that was in play, but that’s a week away [the wild-card series], so I’m not expecting [Judge being available] but I’m not ruling it out.”
Boone said Judge received a PPP (platelet-poor plasma) injection on Monday and will not do any baseball activities for the next “couple days” at least.
“Not much,” Boone said. “Running, jumping, things like that.”
But even that little bit of information resulted in more questions than answers as, given that Judge has a calf injury, one would naturally wonder exactly what kind of running and jumping he is actually is doing.
Judge missed three months earlier in the season while recovering from a right rib fracture. Then he went 4-for-23 with 13 strikeouts and one homer in seven games before returning to the IL with the calf injury, which he suffered in the early going of Wednesday afternoon’s loss to the Twins in Minneapolis.
Facing the Red Sox without Judge makes, obviously, that series more of a challenge, though the Yankees won their season series against Boston, 7-6. Judge did not play in any of those games.
The Yankees went 45-39 record during Judge’s first stint on the IL, an impressive mark considering how the club has typically played during his career when he’s missed significant time (though the Yankees averaged nearly a run more with Judge than without him, 5.2 compared to 4.1).
“Obviously, having Judge on our team helps us tremendously,” Bellinger said between games. “We just have to continue coming out winning games, playing for each other, continue leaning on each other and just continue playing good baseball.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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