New York Yankees starter Cam Schlittler took ownership of his team's loss to the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 2 of the ALDS on Monday. The Rays opened the scoring in the bottom of the first inning, as errors from Ryan McMahon and Jazz Chisholm Jr. contributed to Yandy Diaz crossing the plate. The Rays scored four more runs in the fifth inning, with defense playing a big part in those as well.
The Rays put runners on second and third base with no outs, and Liam Hicks brought home the third run of the game with a dribbler to second. The following play, Chandler Simpson grounded a ball to shortstop George Lombard Jr., who couldn't come up with the ball—allowing the Rays' third run of the game to score without recording an out. Schlittler exited the game afterwards, but the Rays didn't stop the party there.
After reliever Brent Headrick struck out Victor Mesa Jr. for the second out of the inning, outfielder Johnny DeLuca reached on an error by Lombard which would have ended the inning. DeLuca stole second in the following at-bat, and both he and Mesa scored on a single to make the score 5-1. Despite his defense's shortcomings, Schlittler took the blame for the loss.
"I'm not disappointed in our defense. I'm not disappointed in the offense. Really just disappointed in myself," Schlittler said.
"That's baseball and those things are gonna happen. But I've got to be able to work through those. I wasn't able to do that today." The right-hander finished the game with 4.1 innings pitched and six hits allowed, striking out just two batters while allowing four runs, two of which were earned.
The Yankees had just four hits on the night to go with their four errors, marking the fifth postseason game in franchise history with that many defensive blunders. Ben Rice scored both of the Yankees' runs on the evening with two solo home runs. Now at a 2-0 deficit in the series, the Yankees have two all-important games at Yankee Stadium ahead of them on Wednesday and Thursday.
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