Max Fried gave up two home runs, the New York Yankees had one taken off the board by fan interference and then their season ended Thursday night with a whimper. After Anthony Volpe's would-be tying homer in the bottom of the sixth inning turned into a double on video review, the Yankees did not get a runner past second base. When leadoff hitter Trent Grisham struck out to end the ninth, it capped a 4-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 3 of the AL Division Series and a series sweep that extended the Yankees’ championship drought to 17 years.
Without injured slugger Aaron Judge, they were one-hit and shut out in the opener, when catcher Austin Wells' baserunning blunder loomed large. Game 2 included four errors to get pushed to the brink of elimination. The Yankees didn't go quietly — at least initially.
When Fried gave up a run apiece in the third and fourth innings, the bats responded each time to tie the score. Victor Mesa Jr. crushed Fried's 80th and final pitch for a go-ahead, two-run home run that was far from a short-porch homer like Ryan Vilade's earlier. It looked like New York would get it right back in a redemption moment for Volpe, but a Jeffrey Maier-esque moment came back to haunt the home team 30 years later.
With rookie George Lombard Jr. on base — and Wells would have been if not for a successful ABS challenge by the Rays — Volpe turned on right-hander Griffin Jax's 95.9 mph sinker and hit it 357 feet to left field. It was a matter of inches as to whether a fan reached over the fence and interfered with the ball or it would have cleared the wall entirely. Called a home run by the umpires on the field, video review determined the fan did interfere.
The replay official scored it an RBI double for Volpe with a run scored, but the run that did not turned out to be the difference. With the air sucked out of Yankee Stadium, Spencer Jones — who singled and doubled in his first two plate appearances — struck out swinging to end the threat. The eighth started with Paul Goldschmidt reaching on a throwing error and finished with fellow pinch-hitter with Giancarlo Stanton striking out in just his second at-bat of the postseason.
Stanton got chances to swing the bat after strained calf muscles in each of his legs sidelined him since April 24. Judge was not afforded the same opportunity, left off the rosters for the AL Wild Card Series and the ALDS because of his calf injury. Aaron Boone again fell short of a title in his ninth season as New York's manager, and some fans chanted "Fire Boone!" as they streamed to the exits.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
