The New York Yankees opened the American League Division Series with the kind of night that makes a short series feel shorter.
On Saturday in St. Petersburg, Tampa Bay shut them out 1-0 at Tropicana Field, and New York did not manage its first hit until the eighth inning.
A lineup built to overwhelm had spent most of the evening looking overmatched against a Rays club that had been the best team in the American League all season.
After the game, Derek Jeter did not soften the reading. Speaking on FOX Sports, the former captain called Monday’s Game 2 a must-win and treated the point as nonnegotiable.
“It is a must-win. That’s the approach you have to have. It is a must-win. You have Schlittler on the mound. You must win that game,” Jeter said. “Tampa’s been the best team in the American League all year. They are tough to beat, especially in that stadium. They are very tough to beat in that stadium. You cannot go down 0-2. I don’t care if you’re going back to New York or not and expect to win three.
“It’s a lot to take away Aaron Judge from a lineup. [Giancarlo] Stanton, you can’t even count Stanton, the one at-bat. He hasn’t played since April. You’re taking those two guys out of the lineup and you’re facing a team that has great pitching in the Tampa Rays, and a team that knows how to play, especially in that ballpark, and they do all the little things right. So you really got to focus and pay attention from the first inning on. This isn’t, okay, look, this happened in the eighth inning. From the first inning on, you have to pay attention to detail.”
The absences give the warning extra weight. Judge is out of the order, and Stanton, limited to a single at-bat and idle since April, cannot be counted on as the middle-of-the-order force New York usually expects.
Against a Tampa Bay staff that lived on strikeouts and soft contact all year, and inside a ballpark that has long favored the home side, that is a difficult combination.
Cam Schlittler gets the ball in Game 2.
Jeter’s point was that the starter’s assignment is only part of it. The offense has to be precise from the first pitch, not hopeful that a late rally will erase an early deficit.
Jeter spent all 20 of his seasons in pinstripes and was on the field for five World Series titles, the last of them in 2009. The franchise has not won another since.
This club arrived in the Division Series as the American League East runner-up at 93-68, fresh off a sweep of the Boston Red Sox in the Wild Card round.
That series showed what the Yankees can do when the bats show up. Saturday showed what happens when they do not. Falling behind 0-2 would leave them needing three wins against the league’s best team, two of those games still in a building Jeter described as especially unforgiving.
For a captain who treated October as a requirement rather than a hope, the math is simple enough: Monday is not a chance to even the series. It is the game they have to take.
