Yankees can’t solve Drew Rasmussen again in brutal loss to Rays
The minor league portion of their schedule over with for now with the Oakland A’s having left town, the Yankees got back to reality on Thursday night when they were knocked around by the first-place Rays in an 8-2 loss to open the series.
The loss came after the Yankees dropped two of three at Tampa Bay last week and on Thursday in The Bronx they barely avoided their second shutout of the season, scoring a pair of runs in the bottom of the ninth.
“It’s tough,’’ Aaron Judge said of another defeat at the hands of the Rays. “This team is sitting at the top [of the AL East]. We have to try and gain some ground on them.”
On Thursday, the last-place Yankees fell to 21-18, nine games behind Tampa Bay (30-9), which became the first team since the 1984 Tigers to win 30 of its first 39 games.
Domingo German was solid for a second straight start against the Rays, but got nothing to show for it, as the Yankee offense, which beat up Oakland’s laughably bad pitching in a three-game sweep, couldn’t figure out Tampa Bay right-hander Drew Rasmussen … again.
The Yankees came into the game having scored double figures in each of their previous two games and seven or more in four straight before Rasmussen shut them down for seven innings.
Rasmussen allowed just a pair of singles to Jake Bauers and has developed into a Yankee killer. He’s tossed 21 scoreless innings against the Yankees in four appearances — three starts — with 26 strikeouts.
“We haven’t solved him yet,’’ Aaron Boone said. “He had his way.”
And the 27-year-old was very efficient on Thursday, needing just 76 pitches to get through seven innings.
“I think some guys had good plans, but you have to stick with it as the at-bat goes on,’’ Judge said. “You’ve got to have conviction and stick with the plan through at-bats. When you’re constantly switching your approach guy-to-guy or at-bat to at-bat, it’s gonna make it tough.”
German cruised through the first four innings before Anthony Rizzo booted a routine grounder by Josh Lowe with one out in the fifth.
Francisco Mejia followed by popping out to third, but Yandy Diaz made the Yankees pay for Rizzo’s miscue with a double down the left-field line that scored Lowe from first.
German was pulled after walking Taylor Walls with two outs in the sixth — having thrown 87 pitches — and Ron Marinaccio entered and gave up a single to Luke Raley and hit Manuel Margot to load the bases for Josh Lowe, who hit a bases-clearing double to right-center to make it 4-0.
Albert Abreu gave up an RBI double to Taylor Walls in the seventh and Ryan Weber was hit hard in the eighth and gave up three runs after being called up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
The bullpen, which entered the game with the lowest ERA in the majors, ended up allowing six earned runs in 3 ¹/₃ innings and Marinaccio, who had given up just four hits in his first 12 appearances this season, has allowed five in his last three outings.
As much as the right-hander regretted giving up the three-run double to Lowe, he also lamented Raley’s single, when Marinaccio had been ahead in the count, 1-2.
It may not have mattered, as Yankees got almost nothing going offensively all night before they loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and Gleyber Torres singled in the two runs.
That was all they could come up with after scoring double digits in their previous two games and seven or more in four straight.
Friday, they’ll turn to Gerrit Cole to try to solve Tampa Bay after they were unable to get back to a season-high five games over .500.
