The Yankees suddenly can’t find a victory, and the Rays can’t stop winning.
The result? An AL East deficit that has now swelled to eight games in the last four days.
Tampa Bay has now won nine in a row after taking down the Red Sox on Wednesday, and with the Yanks dropping their fourth in a row, they now stare at a possibly insurmountable gap in their efforts to avoid the Wild Card Game.
“We lost some razor-thin games,” Aaron Boone said after Wednesday’s loss. “Tonight was a story of five double plays, which obviously really hurt us. I thought we were having good at-bats all night, and it’s a game we feel like we probably should have broken open and did not.”
The Yanks have been competitive in every game during their losing skid, dropping the last four games by a combined six runs, but they haven’t been able to find the big hit in the later innings, while the Rays have continued to roll, running away with the division just when the Yanks seemed to be making up ground during their 13-game winning streak.
Instead, the Yanks may have to turn their attention towards solidifying home field in the Wild Card Game for the third time since 2017, though they won’t concede anything until math rules it impossible.
“My focus is on the New York Yankees at all times,” Anthony Rizzo said. “There’s gonna be other teams playing good baseball, but as long we take care of ourselves…and continue to play really good baseball, in two or three weeks we’ll pick our heads up and see where we’re at.
“I think we just stay the course. It’s never easy coming out west, especially this time of year. I think we’re continuing to have good, team at-bats, and our pitching has been pretty solid, we just haven’t scored enough runs. I think we just stay the course, continue to build the belief that we’re not out of any game. I think it shows every game here that we’re still fighting until the end.”
Chances of winning the division and avoiding the Wild Card Game appear to be slipping away, and pulling out these recent close losses could have changed that outlook. But the team’s recent surge has thrust them back into a playoff spot, which is how they are perceiving their recent play.
“Any time you lose a game it’s frustrating, but losing four in a row is very frustrating and unacceptable,” Brett Gardner said. “We’d been playing really good baseball for a while now…and over these last four days, we’ve lost by six runs…it’s a tough game, as you know, and even though we’ve lost four in a row, we’ve won 13 of our last 17, that’s how I choose to look at it.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
Follow WFAN on Social Media
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Twitch
