being as cold as the air in The Bronx<\/a> did not instantly heat up in a warmer climate, instead dropping a third straight game as the Yankees fell to the Rays 5-3 at Tropicana Field on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\nIn all, the Yankees (8-5) mustered just five hits, which was four more than they had Thursday. But still, over their last three games, they have recorded only 10 hits.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust got to get some guys clicking and get that big hit,\u201d manager Aaron Boone said. \u201cWe\u2019re not hitting a ton of long balls right now. But for the most part, approach-wise, I\u2019ve been good [with it].\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to happen sometimes from the offense. They\u2019ll get it rolling and some people will pay the price.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
After Amed Rosario\u2019s RBI triple made it a 2-0 game in the top of the first inning Friday \u2014 the two runs ending a 17-inning scoreless drought \u2014 the Yankees did not record another hit until Ben Rice led off the eighth inning with a pinch-hit home run that pulled them within 5-3. <\/p>\n
Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees reacts to striking out as Nick Fortes of the Tampa Bay Rays throws the ball during the fifth inning of a baseball game at Tropicana Field on April 10, 2026 in St. Petersburg, Florida. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Their only base runner in between was Paul Goldschmidt, who drew a walk and was hit by a pitch, but never got past first base.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Yankees then made a late threat in the ninth inning, when they led off with back-to-back singles. But Jazz Chisholm Jr. grounded into a fielder\u2019s choice, Randal Grichuk (staying in to bat for himself because Boone said he liked his righties against righty Bryan Baker, who has reverse splits) struck out and pinch-hitter Trent Grisham popped out to end it, leaving runners on second and third.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got to hit. That\u2019s it,\u201d said Austin Wells, who went 0-for-3 and is 5-for-33 on the young season. \u201cWe got to take pressure off these guys on the mound, they\u2019re doing a great job for us. So we got to string some at-bats together and hit a couple big ones and get rolling.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the last two offensive duds before Friday wasted quality pitching, Luis Gil was just OK in his season debut, allowing three runs on three hits, three walks and a hit batter across four innings in which the Rays (6-7) forced him to throw 88 pitches.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo beyond the box score with the Bombers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Yankees by Greg Joyce, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Gil grinded for much of the night and got into some long at-bats in his first start after being the odd man out of the Yankees\u2019 four-man rotation to begin the season. The right-hander spent much of the spring trying to rediscover the form that made him the AL Rookie of the Year in 2024, which remains a work in progress after starting the season at Triple-A.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New York Yankees pitcher Luis Gil delivers to the Tampa Bay Rays during the first inning. AP<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a battle tonight,\u201d Gil, who struck out two and only got five swings-and-misses, said through an interpreter. \u201cI can be better. But at the same time, it\u2019s the first outing of the season. I\u2019m happy to be back here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Yankees quickly got on the scoreboard against Rays left-hander and ex-Met Steven Matz in the top of the first. Aaron Judge smoked a one-out single to left field, stole second and took third after an error on the play, and then came home to score on Cody Bellinger\u2019s sacrifice fly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After Giancarlo Stanton walked, the Rays helped out some more when Rosario hit a sinking liner to left field that Chandler Simpson tried to make a sliding grab on. But he came up well short of the ball as it bounced off the turf and way over his head, rolling all the way to the wall, allowing Stanton to score on Rosario\u2019s \u201ctriple\u201d that made it 2-0.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gil immediately gave those runs right back, though, in the bottom of the first. After getting two quick outs, he walked Jonathan Aranda before leaving a slider up to Yandy Diaz, who belted it the other way for a two-run homer that tied the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero celebrates with first baseman Jonathan Aranda (8) after they beat the Yankees. AP<\/p>\n
In the third inning, the Rays pushed ahead the go-ahead run \u2014 in the form of Taylor Walls, who got on base after being hit on the 10th pitch of an at-bat \u2014 before tacking on two more runs against Brent Headrick and Camilo Doval in the sixth inning, fueled in part by Headrick\u2019s fielding error.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for our team, we have all the opportunity and all the strength to be able to go out there and turn it around [Saturday],\u201d Wells said. \u201cAll the guys in this locker room are capable of turning it around the next day. I think that\u2019s what\u2019s good about our team and what\u2019ll make us good for the rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The Yankees wasted no time snapping their scoreless streak Friday night.\u00a0 But it did…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[46144,20,9,24,55,54,321,56,319,25678],"class_list":{"0":"post-193337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-luis-gil","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-city-news","14":"tag-new-york-yankees","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-tampa-bay-rays"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}