Rays Feast on Yankees Errors, Take 2-0 ALDS Lead With 5-2 Win

The Tampa Bay Rays are one win from the American League Championship Series. Richie Palacios lined a two-run single in a four-run fifth inning, the New York Yankees committed four errors, and the Rays beat New York 5-2 on Monday night at Tropicana Field to take a 2-0 lead in their best-of-five AL Division Series, ESPN and MLB.com reported.

The trouble started early for New York. Three of the Yankees’ four errors came in the first inning. Yandy Díaz reached when third baseman Ryan McMahon misplayed a grounder, Jonathan Aranda singled, and Díaz scored when second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. made a wild throw on Junior Caminero’s fielder’s choice. ESPN Research said New York became the fourth team to commit three errors in the first inning of a postseason game, and the first since the Oakland Athletics in Game 1 of the 1975 ALCS. MLB.com noted the four errors tied the second-most in Yankees postseason history.

Ben Rice tied the game 1-1 in the fourth with a solo homer off Freddy Peralta, ending New York’s scoreless run in the series. The tie did not last. Aranda opened the fifth with a single, Caminero ripped a 112.4 mph double to right-center, and Liam Hicks drove in the go-ahead run with a groundout to second. Chandler Simpson then hit a grounder that shortstop George Lombard Jr. could not handle, bringing in Caminero.

That ended the night for Cam Schlittler, the Yankees’ ace and the likely AL Cy Young Award winner. He lasted 4⅓ innings and allowed four runs, two earned, on six hits with only two strikeouts. After reliever Brent Headrick struck out Victor Mesa Jr., Simpson stole second and Jonny DeLuca reached on Lombard’s throwing error. Palacios followed with a hard single to center that made it 5-1.

The Brooklyn native, who MLB.com says grew up a Yankees fan, was second on the Rays this season with 31 two-out RBIs. “He seems, as much as anybody in our lineup, to really rise to the occasion when we need him to come through,” manager Kevin Cash said.

Tampa Bay’s bullpen did the rest. Cam Booser escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fifth when Cody Bellinger flied out to the warning track in center, Ian Seymour covered three innings and allowed only Rice’s second homer in the eighth, and Bryan Baker pitched a perfect ninth for his second save of the series. Peralta gave up one run on three hits in 4⅔ innings in front of a sellout crowd of 40,226.

New York has scored just two runs in two games with Aaron Judge out of the lineup because of a calf injury, according to ESPN. “It’s a tough loss. We beat ourselves today, in a lot of ways,” Chisholm said. Manager Aaron Boone called it “gut-check time.”

History favors Tampa Bay. MLB.com reports that teams leading a best-of-five postseason series 2-0 have gone on to win it 83 of 93 times. The last team to come back from 0-2 in a best-of-five was the 2017 Yankees against Cleveland. “It’s going to be challenging, but we’ve set ourselves up in a good way by getting on a plane here up 2-0,” Cash said.

Game 3 is Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium, with left-hander Max Fried expected to start for New York and right-hander Nick Martinez for Tampa Bay. For more postseason coverage, visit our Sports page.

Verification: The score, the fifth-inning sequence, the error totals, the pitching lines and the quotes were reported by ESPN News Services (Oct. 5) and MLB.com (Oct. 6), including its Yankees-side game story, and match the official box score.