Not even Gerrit Cole could save the Yankees from sinking further into the depths of despair.
The $ 324 million ace tried to play the role of the stopper on Sunday and got off to a strong start, but the scuffling bout still came empty when the Yankees dropped a fifth game in a row and were swept by the Rays with a 4- 2 loss at Yankee Stadium. .
The Yankees (5-10) collected just three hits while the Rays (8-8) kept their numbers, improving to 5-1 against the Yankees this season and 15-3 against them since September 2019.
The last time the Yankees won was Cole’s previous start on Monday against the Blue Jays, but he couldn’t get them out of their funk on his own. He gave up three runs (two earned) while striking out 10 batters in 6 ¹ / ₃ innings, but was burned out by a poor defense in a third inning of two runs, before giving up the go-ahead run in the seventh .
Cole took the mound on 98 pitches to start the seventh inning in a 2-2 game, after retiring 12 batters in a row. After Mike Brosseau struckout, Joey Wendle lined out with a single and Yoshi Tsutsugo tore a double into the right-midfield gap to put the Rays at 3-2 and end Cole’s day.
Wendle later took out Darren O’Day deep in the ninth inning for an insurance run.
Giancarlo Stanton had given the Yankees – on their worst start since 1997 – their first lead in the series in the second inning when he tore a solo-homerun to the short veranda in the right field. It marked the first time that the Yankees led in 22 innings, dating from the sixth inning of Wednesday’s loss against the Blue Jays.
It didn’t take long, though, as the Yankees gave it back in the top of the third inning, courtesy of some costly defensive blunders from their outfield. Mike Zunino singled and led off the inning before Kevin Kiermaier hit a bloop in midfield. Aaron Hicks cheated on Zunino and pretended to catch him before falling. He could have gotten the power in second place, but he shook the ball and Zunino reached safely.
Yandy Diaz came on next and hit a game-tying RBI-single to midfield, where Hicks again failed to field it cleanly, enabling Kiermaier to take third base. That proved costly when Manuel Margot hit a sacrifice fly to the left to take the 2-1 lead. Even that game didn’t go smoothly, as Clint Frazier fired the pitch in no man’s land between the mound and first base, enabling Diaz to tag safely and slide to second base. But Cole was able to work out of trouble with a strikeout.
The Yankees came back to tie the score in the fifth inning, when Gio Urshela led off with a double and eventually scored on a two-out, RBI single by DJ LeMahieu. But while the crowd was on their feet hoping for more, Aaron hit Judge out to strand a few runners.
LeMahieu later got another chance to play hero by sending an attack into the crowd in the seventh inning with a flyout to rightfield, but it fell into Margot’s glove on the warning track.