There was comfort in the most crushing loss of the season: The Yankees are not planning to visit Tampa again this year.
Despite a solid effort from James Paxton and a late three-run lead, the Yankees claimed their third loss in four games against the Rays on Sunday, 4-3, on Michael Perez’s walk-off single off Zack Britton. With their seventh loss in their last eight games at Tropicana Field, the Yankees have now lost five of seven games since their winter streak of seven games, allowing the Rays to climb from first place in two games.
The Yankees begin a nine-game home game against the Braves on Tuesday.
Paxton, a week away from admitting he was ‘worried’ and hoping ‘to find out’ what’s going on, shook off two discouraged outings – a total of four innings – with six brilliant innings, in which he 11 record strikes. With the help of a fastball-heavy attack, the lefty increased his speed to 94 mph – averaging 91.8 mph on fastballs in his first two starts, down from 95.4 last season – and gave him just one hit in the seventh inning .
“I feel that even before the last start, he started making some improvements, and he felt like the work between the last start and today was good,” Aaron Boone said before the game. ‘I’m sure he’s going to get there and hopefully in time some of that speed will start to come back. I think it’s important that he [and] we realize even when his speed is down that he still has the weapons and capabilities to store effectively. ”
Despite leaving nine men at base and 0-for-8 to go with rounds in scoring position, the Yankees suffered enough offense.
The first run came when Mike Ford was hit with a pitch with the bases loaded in the first inning. The Yankees got another few runs in the fifth inning, when Ray center fielder Manuel Margot hit a deep flyball from Gio Urshela that would have been the third.
Happiness would end. That would have dominated Paxton.
After a leadoff goal from Jose Martinez in the seventh, Tampa Bay cut the deficit to one with Mike Brosseau’s two-run bomb to the left. One pitch later, the Yankees lead was erased by Brandon Lowe’s homer to center.
When Paxton went out of the mound with a no-decision – after lowering his ERA from 13.50 to 7.84 – it turned out that the lefty taunts heard from the Rays bench before hitting his hand hard in the Yankees -dugout. In 6 ¹ / ₃ innings, Paxton allowed three runs, four hits and one walk.
Jonathan Holder finished seventh, then escaped eighth. After giving up a pinch-hit single to Ji-Man Choi and a one-out double to Austin Meadows, Holder deliberately ran Martinez to load the bases, allowing him to call up an in-depth double play against Hunter Renfroe.
With Britton taking over in the ninth, Brosseau shot a leadoff double, but he was thrown third on a ground after Gleyber Torres. But a wild pitch soon put Lowe on second. Three fighters later, Perez sent the Yankees back home.
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