For a few innings Wednesday night it looked like more of the same. The Yankees had been going through the motions for weeks, and even their own fans were checking out early. Eric Hubbs summed up the vibe before things turned, joking the lineup looked ready to punt on the game entirely.
Yanks are just like what’s the point, let’s just get this over with and watch the soccer
Then Ben Rice happened. His solo shot against the Rays left the yard at 102.6 mph and traveled 400 feet, the kind of no-doubter that gets the whole dugout up and moving. Aaron Judge was waiting for him at the top step, which says plenty about how flat this team had felt lately and how much a swing like that can change the temperature of a dugout.
Ben Rice's 400-foot bomb off the Rays, with Judge greeting him in the dugout.
But the real story of the night was Cam Schlittler. The young righty was, in Hubbs's words, lights out and pitching ace shit, the kind of start that can reset a team's whole outlook overnight. Add in a defense that rose to the moment behind him, and suddenly a Yankees team that had looked disinterested for weeks had its sharpest, most locked-in performance in recent memory.
Yankees played like a team that got a wake up call before the game from somebody. Cam was lights out. Ace shit. Caballero rising to the moment. Benny with a bomb. That’s the kind of focus they’ve been missing. I love Cam Schlittler.
None of this fixes a season's worth of problems in one game. But for a fanbase that's been searching for any sign of pulse, watching Schlittler carve up the Rays while Rice provided the exclamation point was exactly the kind of night that reminds you why this roster still has teeth. The focus, the energy, the little things — all of it showed up at once. Now the trick is doing it again tomorrow.