Austin Wells was thrown out inexplicably trying to stretch a double into a triple<\/a>. On Monday, however, it was the defense that those scouting reports warned of that did the Yankees in, as Ryan McMahon committed a fielding error on the second pitch of the game.<\/p>\nEarlier in the day, Boone said that he had given some thought to Anthony Volpe starting in place of the light-hitting third baseman, but he didn\u2019t want the former shortstop\u2019s first turfed Trop appearance at the hot corner to come in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to prioritize the defense,\u201d Boone said, but his defense didn\u2019t prioritize taking care of the ball.<\/p>\n
McMahon wasn\u2019t the only Yankee to falter in the first, as Jazz Chisholm Jr. helped a run score when he made an off-line throw from second base to first base on a double play attempt. With his back turned to first and Jonathan Aranda sliding at him, Chisholm\u2019s heave was off-balance and ill-advised. And yet, he didn\u2019t think he should have held onto the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I\u2019d probably still throw it in the play that was trying to be made,\u201d Chisholm said. \u201cI just feel like I could have probably tried to make an even better throw. Where I\u2019d throw it, I\u2019d try and throw it a little more close to the base. My back was turned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just trying to make a play, trying to get my pitcher out of the play. My shortstop made a great play. I tried to make a great play too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wells was then called for catcher interference upon review, and Chisholm nearly threw another ball away before the inning ended.<\/p>\n
Somehow, the Rays only scored once in the first inning. And with Cam Schlittler grinding and Ben Rice ripping a solo homer in the fourth, the Yankees were in position to leave St. Pete with a sorely-needed split.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the way we wanted to start, but the fact that Cam was able to make pitches and get us out of it with only letting up one run was pretty good given how it all unraveled there,\u201d said Rice, who homered twice. \u201cWe were feeling good at that point in the game that we were going to have a chance to get back in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But disaster struck their defense again in the fifth inning, which began with an Aranda single to right. The ball bounced in front of Spencer Jones after he got a jump that was -13.4 feet below average, per Statcast. Boone claimed the 109.4-mph \u201cbullet\u201d wasn\u2019t catchable, and that the play wasn\u2019t one to \u201cpick on\u201d with so many other mishaps to choose from.<\/p>\n
Jones disagreed. He said he should have caught it, but he admitted to hesitating on a \u201ctough read.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junior Caminero then smoked a double before Chisholm, faced with what would have been a tough play at the plate, settled for an out at first on a soft infield tapper. That gave Tampa the lead before George Lombard Jr. was presented with a similar play. Unlike Chisholm, he didn\u2019t field the ball, nor did he record an out as the Rays scampered home again.<\/p>\n
The fifth eventually came to a merciful end, but not before a stretching Luis Garc\u00eda Jr. dropped a wide throw from Lombard at first. The rookie shortstop was charged with an error on that one.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just one of those games where things kind of compiled and stacked up on top of each other,\u201d Lombard said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t ideal, and we put ourselves in a bad spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, yes they did.<\/p>\n
Now the Yankees \u2014 devoid of fundamentals, riddled with mistakes, and short on offense \u2014 find themselves in an unenviable 2-0 hole as they head back to Yankee Stadium, where the Rays have already celebrated a division crown in the past month. The Yanks\u00a0need to win three straight to keep their season alive, but only 10 teams in MLB history have overcome such a deficit in a best-of-five series and advanced.<\/p>\n
If they hope to be the 11th, they\u2019ll have to play a much cleaner brand of baseball in the Bronx, the scouting reports be damned.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a rough ride back, but you\u2019ve got to find out what you\u2019re made of. It\u2019s gut-check time,\u201d Boone said. \u201cWe can\u2019t dwell on what just happened to us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 As Aaron Boone awaited the start of the ALDS in the visiting manager\u2019s office…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[165894,23181,202,204,203,199,201,200,77437],"class_list":["post-419923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-alds-game-2","tag-rays","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-yankees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}