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May 8, 2023

Schadenfreude 339 (A Continuing Series)

Greg Joyce, Post:

There is losing a rubber game, and then there is what the Yankees experienced across three-plus hours on Sunday afternoon.

Long after taking a 6-0 lead and blowing it with Gerrit Cole on the mound, the Yankees came back to force extra innings before suffering a crushing loss. The Rays walked it off for an 8-7 win in 10 innings . . .

The Yankees had missed a chance to take the lead in the top of the 10th with Aaron Hicks on third and one out. With the infield in, Gleyber Torres grounded to shortstop and Hicks took off on a contact play . . . but had no shot of scoring. He ended up getting tagged out in a rundown that lasted long enough to get Torres to third, but Rizzo struck out to end the threat.

The Yankees, who went 1-for-15 with runners in scoring position . . .

It was hard to see a 10th inning being necessary when the Yankees took a 6-0 lead into the bottom of the fifth with Cole on the mound. . . .

[T]he Rays got to Cole for two runs in that fifth — including a solo shot by Jose Siri, the first home run Cole allowed this season after going his first 51 innings without surrendering one.

Then in the sixth, they piled on four more runs off Cole and squeezed another out of Cordero to take the 7-6 lead in the blink of an eye.

Cole started the sixth by giving up back-to-back doubles and then issuing a walk. Cordero was ready in the bullpen, but Boone stuck with Cole, who promptly gave up a game-tying, three-run home run to Christian Bethancourt.

"In hindsight, probably should have got him [before Bethancourt]," Boone said. . . .

Gary Phillips, Daily News:

A 6-0 lead should have been more than enough to beat the Rays, especially with Gerrit Cole on the mound. But little has gone well for the Yankees outside of their ace this year, and Cole finally contributed to a sorry stretch . . . 

Cole surrendered his first two home runs of the season, the first coming off the bat of No. 9 hitter Jose Siri in the fifth inning. . . . [T]he Rays added another run on a fluky play involving Gleyber Torres and Oswaldo Cabrera, and more trouble followed in the sixth.

First, Isaac Paredes's RBI double cut the Yankees' lead to three. It then evaporated altogether when Christian Bethancourt, the Rays' No. 8 hitter, crushed a three-run homer off Cole to straightaway center. The blast knocked Cole out of the game . . .

"It feels awful," Cole added of blowing the Yankees' six-run lead. . . .

The Rays weren't done scoring in the sixth, as Jimmy Cordero failed to look Siri back on a chopper to the first base side of the mound. Siri, who took off from second and never stopped, scored on the throw to first — and barreled over the home plate ump in the process.

Mark W. Sanchez, Post:

Gerrit Cole . . . served up two dingers and coughed up a six-run lead in an 8-7, 10-inning defeat to the Rays at Tropicana Field on Sunday. . . .

Cole had rolled through four scoreless innings, in which he needed 60 pitches, before trouble arose in the fifth.

With one out in a game the Yankees led, 6-0, Cole threw a first-pitch, down-the-middle four-seamer to Jose Siri, who drilled a home run to center. The Rays added an unearned run in the frame on two singles and an error, and the game would fall apart an inning later.

In the sixth inning, Harold Ramirez (on an inside fastball) and Isaac Paredes (on a down-the-middle slider) knocked back-to-back doubles before Cole lost a battle with Manuel Margot, who walked on eight pitches.

The Yankees' lead was down to 6-3.

Aaron Boone . . . stuck with Cole, who had thrown 94 pitches.

His 95th was a down-the-middle slider to Christian Bethancourt, who hammered a game-tying, three-run home run. . . .

Cole led the majors in homers allowed last season (33). . . .

"They were able to capitalize on a few mistakes," Boone said.

Mark W. Sanchez, Post:

There are games in which physical and mental mistakes are incidental and inconsequential.

Against a club that is off to a historic start, the Yankees did not have room for any kind of error.

Fundamental issues burned the Yankees in the 8-7, 10-inning loss to the Rays at Tropicana Field on Sunday . . .

The most obvious gaffe arose in the sixth inning of a game that was tied.

Jimmy Cordero entered, walked Tampa Bay's Jose Siri and advanced the runner to second on a wild pitch.

Siri would score on an error, but a mental one.

Siri took off for third base and got a big jump.

Cordero delivered to Yandy Diaz, who hit a tapper in between the mound and first base.

Cordero fielded it and did not check on Siri, who rounded third and kept coming home.

Cordero threw to first baseman DJ LeMahieu for the second out of the inning, but Siri scored all the way from second on a ball that traveled a couple feet. . . .

[T]he Rays [are] the seventh team since 1901 to win 19 of its first 22 home games . . .

 


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