Yankees squander late lead but avoid the worst in loss to Rays
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Big picture, the Yankees' eighth inning could have gone much worse.
Smaller picture, it cost the club a game.
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The Yankees coughed up a one-run lead when the Rays found their way on base, ran wild, inadvertently brought about an Anthony Volpe scare and scored the go-ahead run on a Volpe error in a 3-2 Yankees loss in front of 44,051 in The Bronx on Saturday.
The Yankees (19-14) wasted home runs from Aaron Judge (up to 11 on the season) and Austin Wells, as well as a solid spot start from Ryan Yarbrough. They have split the first two games of the series despite allowing six total hits in large part because of a strange top of the eighth that started with a serious concern.
5 Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe (11) makes a fielding error in the eighth inning of Saturday's loss.
Bill Kostroun/New York Post
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5 Yankees pitcher Mark Leiter Jr. (56) is pulled from the game during the eighth inning.
Bill Kostroun/New York Post
The Yankees began the frame up, 2-1, and Christopher Morel ground a single into the shortstop hole that Volpe chased and attempted to stab with a full-extension dive — and then remained down as the ball caromed off his glove.
Volpe appeared to be holding his left shoulder, which a trainer worked on as manager Aaron Boone and a swarm of Yankees — a kneeling Judge, Trent Grisham, Cody Bellinger, Oswaldo Cabrera and Jorbit Vivas — knelt around the everyday shortstop.
After several minutes, Volpe rose and appeared to talk his way into remaining in the game. If the Yankees breathed a sigh of relief, more-immediate worry then set in about the game itself.
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Mark Leiter Jr. walked Brandon Lowe to put two on, and a double steal (the Rays' fifth and sixth thefts of the afternoon) then put two in scoring position. Curtis Mead drove a 3-2 single into left field to tie it.
Jose Caballero sent a ground ball up the middle that might have been an inning-ending double play but wasn't. Volpe ranged behind second base, tried to corral the ball and scurry to the bag but couldn't get a handle, the ball squirting away with no out recorded and the go-ahead run scoring.
The Yankees, who finished with just five hits against Zack Littell and the Rays' bullpen, mounted a rally in the bottom of the inning and brought Judge to the plate with two on. Against righty Edwin Uceta, though, No. 99 grounded out and could not play hero one more time.
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5 Anthony Volpe stayed in the game after hurting his shoulder.
Bill Kostroun/New York Post
Down Clarke Schmidt (scratched with side soreness that the club does not believe is serious), Yarbrough (four innings of one-run, one-hit ball), Ian Hamilton, Fernando Cruz, Leiter and Tim Hill pieced together a strong bullpen game in which only Leiter faltered (and not egregiously).
CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND YANKEES STATS
The club's problems came offensively, where it only scored with two swings.
Judge rudely greeted Littell with a first-pitch homer into the right-field seats in the first inning, his 11 home runs trailing only the 12 from the Mariners' Cal Raleigh.
After a day that also included a hard-hit single into left, the captain is hitting .432 with a .520 on-base percentage.
5 Aaron Judge homered for the Yankees in the loss.
Bill Kostroun/New York Post
5 Austin Wells also clubbed a home run in the loss on Saturday.
Bill Kostroun/New York Post
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The Yankees crept ahead in the fifth when Wells pulled a full-count pitch over the right-field wall for a 2-1 lead and his sixth homer of the year.
But the lead would not last, even if they might have been able to exhale about Volpe's health.
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