The Yankees looked dead in the water Monday night. Eric Hubbs summed up the vibe after three innings that went nowhere fast.
Yanks are just like what’s the point, let’s just get this over with and watch the soccer
Then came Thursday, and everything flipped. New York had just been shut out the night before in Tampa, an ugly follow-up to a series that had them fighting the first-place Rays and their own inconsistency. Hubbs called the turnaround 'preposterous' given how bad things had looked less than 24 hours earlier, and he wasn't wrong to be stunned.
The centerpiece was a third inning that will get retold in the Bronx for a while. Ryan McMahon opened the scoring with an at-bat Hubbs called some of the best from anyone on the roster all season, working a 12-pitch double that got the line moving.
McMahon's marathon at-bat kicked off the rally that broke the game open.
From there it snowballed. Trent Grisham singled home a run, and then Ben Rice turned on Rays starter Drew Rasmussen for a two-run shot that Hubbs said 'feels fake.' It should have felt that way — Rasmussen entered the day with an 0.89 ERA against the Yankees across more than 50 career innings, reportedly the lowest mark by any pitcher against a single opponent since earned runs became an official stat in 1913. New York took a sledgehammer to that number in one inning.
Grisham's RBI single put the Yankees ahead 2-1 off Rasmussen.
Hubbs tallied the full carnage afterward: a Schuemann double, McMahon's double, Grisham's single, a Rice homer, back-to-back hustle infield singles from Dominguez and Bellinger, a Caballero RBI knock through the vacated right side, and a Jazz sac fly to cap it. Six runs off Rasmussen in the frame alone, and the right-hander was chased before he even worked out of the third. Rasmussen still finished the day 7-5 on the season, but this line will sting for a while given the history he'd built against this exact opponent.
Rice wasn't done. He added a second homer later in the game, a 422-foot blast that had Hubbs gushing about the kind of year Rice is quietly stringing together.
Rice's second homer of the day, a 422-foot bomb, extended the Yankees' lead.
Austin Wells got in on it too, hitting his fifth homer of the season and drawing genuine disbelief from Hubbs in real time. Between Rice's two homers and Wells going deep, the Yankees put together the kind of offensive night that had been nowhere to be found for most of the series — a series that had also featured Rays catcher Hunter Feduccia going deep twice to keep Tampa's lineup humming and Will Warren getting shelled by hitters Hubbs specifically called out by name in frustration.
Austin Wells' homer added to the barrage and left even the Yankees' own fans stunned.
New York ultimately put up 12 runs on 14 hits, with multi-hit games up and down the order — Grisham, Rice, Dominguez, Bellinger, McMahon and Schuemann all got in on it. It capped a wild 24 hours in Tampa that also saw Jon Gruden throw out the first pitch for the Rays, who remain in first place in the AL East despite dropping this one. The Yankees now split the four-game set and head to DC looking to carry the momentum, while Rice heads to Philadelphia for the Home Run Derby on July 13, where his father is reportedly set to pitch to him — a fitting reward for the kind of stretch he's on right now.