Yankees pushed to brink of elimination after committing four errors in ALDS Game 2 loss to Rays

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Along with their gloves, Yankees defenders seemingly armed themselves with seltzer bottles, shaving cream pies, rubber chickens and red floppy shoes when they took the field Monday night.

In a defensive performance that can only be characterized as clownish — certainly not anything close to big-league caliber — the Yankees committed a remarkable four errors, three of them in the Rays' first four at-bats, and had several other misplays.

The slapstick defense helped undermine a not-as-sharp Cam Schlittler and sent the Yankees to a 5-2 loss to Tampa Bay in Game 2 of their American League Division Series in front of another ear-splitting sellout crowd of 40,226 at Tropicana Field.

Suddenly their season is on the brink.

“Obviously, tonight was just not good enough for us, and certainly not good enough to beat that club,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We’ve got to get over it. Playing for our lives [Wednesday] night.”

The Yankees, who managed only one hit in a 1-0 loss in Game 1,  are the last team in the majors to come back from a 0-2 deficit in a best-of-five series, doing so against Cleveland in 2017. But overall, clubs in that hole are 10-83.

The Yankees will send Max Fried to the mound on Wednesday hoping to stave off the kind of early-October exit that has become an all-too-familiar part of Boone’s nine-year tenure.

Another feature of that tenure has been a lack of consistently playing the game well fundamentally, especially in the postseason.

It is for that reason that for years now, prominent on every opposing team’s scouting report before playing the Yankees in October — and this is 100% the case in the Rays’ reports — is some form of this: “Put the ball in play, put pressure on their defense.”

It cracked embarrassingly Monday night against a Rays team that feasts on such mistakes.

It was a nearly around-the-horn error-fest, with miscues committed by third baseman Ryan McMahon, shortstop George Lombard Jr., second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. and catcher Austin Wells (on a catcher’s interference).

“Obviously, it starts with me,” said Schlittler, who allowed four runs (two earned), seven hits and one walk in 4 1⁄3 innings in which he struck out only two (tying a career low) against a Rays team that was the toughest in the majors to strike out this season.

He added, “I’ll be the first one to say that I didn’t do my job, but it didn’t seem like we really showed up today.”

Schlittler, the presumed American League Cy Young Award winner because of a season ERA of 1.95, including a hard-to-fathom 1.16 on the road, later amended the “showed up” part of his comment.

But Schlittler, who during pregame introductions heard a decibel level of booing that only boo-magnet Alex Rodriguez could appreciate, had cause to feel that way.

Because of a combination of the Yankees' defense and the Rays' top-to-bottom bat-to-ball skills, Schlittler was in trouble three pitches into his outing.

After a  called strike, Yandy Diaz bounced harmlessly to third. McMahon, whose defense faded down the stretch during the regular season, booted the routine chopper.

“A nice little two-hopper,” he said. “Just caught some topspin and got by me.”

On Schlittler's third pitch, Jonathan Aranda grounded a hard single past a diving McMahon and past Lombard into leftfield to put runners on first and second.

Junior Caminero grounded to short and Lombard flipped the ball to Chisholm, who barehanded the toss for the out but made a wild throw to first that hit the facing of the Rays' dugout, allowing Diaz to score.

Schlittler then appeared to strike out Liam Hicks on three called strikes, but Wells committed catcher’s interference on the third one as Hicks moved the bat slightly and hit Wells' glove.

The Yankees barely escaped a fourth error in a span of five batters when Chisholm fielded Chandler Simpson's potential double-play grounder and made a poor throw to Lombard, who  was able to grab the errant throw and stab the bag with a foot for the second out. 

Of the four errors overall, McMahon said: “Just not acceptable. Luckily, Cam kept it to one run [in the first].”

Ben Rice tied it at 1-1 in the fourth with the first of his two home runs, but the Yankees' luck then ran out.

Minutes after Cody Bellinger hit a 405-foot drive with the bases loaded that Jonny DeLuca caught at the centerfield wall to end the top of the fifth, the Rays scored four runs, helped by more shoddy defense.

Aranda singled, Caminero doubled and RBI grounders by Hicks and Simpson made it 3-1. On Simpson's grounder, Lombard — thinking about a play at the plate — charged the ball and dropped it. The ruling on the play was changed twice and wound up being scored a fielder's choice after earlier being ruled an error. 

Brent Headrick replaced Schlittler and  struck out Victor Mesa Jr. for the second out. The speedy DeLuca then grounded to Lombard and hustled down the line, and Lombard threw wide to first base for an error (Luis Garcia Jr. dropped the ball anyway). DeLuca stole second and Richie Palacios capped an eight-pitch at -bat with a two-run single to center to make it 5-1.

Rice homered in the eighth to make it 5-2, but the Yankees now are 5-for-58 with 19 strikeouts through two games. Rice and Wells are a combined 4-for-12 with two homers, two doubles and two walks. Everyone not named Rice and Wells is 1-for-46. The No. 3 through 7 hitters in the Yankees' order are 0-for-33.

But it was the Yankees' defense, or lack of it, that stood out in Game 2.

“I feel like we beat ourselves today in a lot of ways,” Chisholm said. “We’ve just got to lock it in and go do our thing.”

Unfortunately for the Yankees in recent Octobers, a different kind of “thing” than Chisholm had in mind has reared its head.

And it happened again Monday night.

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

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.