Tampa Bay Rays at New York Yankees

·Thu Oct 8·8:00 PM ET·Bronx, NY

By JR·2 min read

Rays(98-64)

Yankees(93-68)

4—3
FINAL

TLDR: The Yankees went home with 3 losses in 3 games, and the last one came down to a fan's glove in left field. Tampa Bay won 4-3, swept New York out of the Division Series and is going to the ALCS.

FINAL · FRI OCT 9, 12:00 AM

Rays

(98-64)

WWWLW

Yankees

(93-68)

LLLWW

Final	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
TB	0	0	1	1	0	2	0	0	0	4	7	1
NYY	0	0	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	3	7	0

1st pitch60°

Tampa Bay beat New York 4-3 at Yankee Stadium to sweep the ALDS 3-0 and reach the ALCS. Victor Mesa Jr.'s 2-run homer off Max Fried in the 6th broke a 2-2 tie. In the bottom half, a fan reached over the wall on Anthony Volpe's drive, and replay turned what looked like a game-tying homer into an RBI double. The Yankees, playing without Aaron Judge, didn't score again.

Tampa Bay Rays

Mesa Jr. 2-run homer off Fried broke 2-2 tie
Vilade homer gave the bottom of the order a run
Bullpen held New York scoreless after the 6th
Committed 1 error in a 1-run game
Nearly gave up the lead on Volpe's drive to the wall

New York Yankees

Answered Tampa Bay's runs in the 3rd and 4th
Volpe RBI double cut the lead to 1 in the 6th
Fried gave up the tiebreaking homer in the 6th
Fan interference turned a tying homer into a double
Scoreless after the 6th with Judge off the roster

The swing that decided it came in the 6th. With the game tied 2-2, Victor Mesa Jr. took Max Fried deep for a 2-run homer and Tampa Bay never trailed again. Fried had kept the Rays to 1 run an inning through the early going, matching the Yankees run for run in the 3rd and 4th. Then 1 mistake to the wrong hitter turned a coin flip into a Tampa Bay lead the Rays bullpen held.

New York played the whole series without Aaron Judge, whose calf kept him off the ALDS roster, and Clarke Schmidt had already been shut down for the season. Tampa Bay was missing plenty too. Shane McClanahan's forearm kept him off its roster, and Ryan Pepiot has been gone since May. The Rays got runs from the bottom of their order anyway. Ryan Vilade also homered, so both of their big swings came from players who don't headline the lineup.

The play people will keep arguing about came in the bottom of the 6th. With 2 outs, Anthony Volpe drove a ball off Griffin Jax to the left-field wall that looked like a game-tying 2-run homer. A fan reached over and caught it above Mesa's leaping glove. Replay ruled the ball would not have cleared the wall and would not have been caught, so Volpe got an RBI double, George Lombard Jr. scored from first, and the Yankees trailed by 1 instead of being tied.

The line score shows how even this one was. Each team had 7 hits, and they traded single runs in the 3rd and 4th. The difference was 1 inning: Tampa Bay scored 2 in the 6th and New York answered with 1. After the Volpe double the Yankees put up 3 straight zeros, and the Rays survived their own error without it costing them a run.

The series as a whole went the same way. Tampa Bay won 1-0 in the opener, 5-2 in Game 2 and 4-3 in this one. The Yankees came into October off back-to-back 9-run games against Boston, then scored 5 runs in 3 games against the Rays. With Judge out, the lineup never got going, and Tampa Bay never needed to pull away. It just had to stay 1 run ahead.

The Rays head to the ALCS for the first time since 2020. They did it with a short rotation and a deep injury list, and won every game of the round. For the Yankees, the season ends at home after a sweep, and the play everyone will remember is a double that should have been a homer, or never got the chance to be one.

Tampa Bay Rays at New York Yankees

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