The Tampa Bay Rays took a 2-0 lead in the American League Division Series on Monday night, beating the New York Yankees 5-2 at Tropicana Field behind a four-run fifth inning and four New York errors.
Right-hander Cam Schlittler lasted 4 1/3 innings in the loss. He allowed six hits and four runs, two of them earned, with one walk and two strikeouts.
The 25-year-old finished the regular season 14-6 with a 1.95 ERA, 239 strikeouts and a 0.92 WHIP across 193 2/3 innings. He had thrown 6 1/3 scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts against Boston in the Wild Card round.
New York committed three of its four errors in the first inning alone. Schlittler limited the damage to one run in that frame before the Rays broke the game open later.
Ben Rice supplied both Yankees runs with a pair of solo home runs. The first tied the score at 1-1 in the fourth.
Tampa Bay answered immediately. Jonathan Aranda singled and Junior Caminero doubled to open the fifth. Liam Hicks’s slow grounder scored the go-ahead run, and further defensive miscues set up Richie Palacios’s two-run single that made it 5-1.
Freddy Peralta worked 4 2/3 innings for the Rays and allowed one run on three hits. Bryan Baker closed with a perfect ninth for his second save of the series.
The Rays had won Game 1 by 1-0 on Saturday, when Drew Rasmussen carried a no-hit bid into the eighth. New York has scored only two runs across the two playoff games.
“Just didn’t have my stuff today,” Schlittler said. “Didn’t get great results. Some timely hits there… didn’t get through the fifth, just not good enough.”
He declined to point at the defense or the offense.
“I’m not disappointed in our defense. I’m not disappointed in the offense. Really just disappointed in myself,” he added. “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.”
Manager Aaron Boone said the club must simply win the next game and play cleaner baseball starting in the first inning Wednesday.
The series shifts to Yankee Stadium for Game 3 on Wednesday night. Max Fried is expected to start for New York against Nick Martinez.
A Yankees win would force a Game 4 on Thursday, with Carlos Rodón lined up to pitch. Tampa Bay needs one more victory to advance to the American League Championship Series.
The Rays finished the regular season 98-64 and won the AL East. The Yankees went 93-68 and entered the postseason as a wild-card team.
New York has not won a World Series since 2009. A loss in either of the next two games would end this year’s run.
