Caballero translates into “gentleman” in Spanish, but former Rays utility player Jose Caballero was anything but gentlemanly in his return to his former home park this evening with two no-doubt and well-celebrated trips around the bases supplying two of the three hits on the evening for the Yankees in their 5-1 victory.
Through the first four innings of this contest, this appeared to be the pitching duel we had thought we would see between Hunter Brown and Drew Rasmussen in that dreadful Saturday evening loss. Both pitchers had 9 swings and missed through the first four innings with the Rays possessing the only hit coming off a Jonny DeLuca flyball into no-man’s land down the right field line. Then , the fifth inning happened.
The frame began innocently enough with Griffin Jax striking out Cody Bellinger on four pitches, culminated by a swinging strike on a sweeper. That was followed up by a six-pitch walk to Jasson Dominquez with four pitches nowhere near the strike zone and a five-pitch walk to Jazz Chisholm Jr with another four pitches well out of the zone. The Yankees lead the American League in walks for a reason, and the back to back walks set things up for Caballero.
Jax got ahead with an ABS-assisted strike before Caballero spit on two sweepers away. A foul ball off a sinker down and in evened up the count and Caballero followed that up by spoiing a fastball on the edge of the zone. Then, Jax and Nick Fortes decided it was the opportune time for the first changeup of the sequence, and this happened:
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It would be the only pitch of the 31 pitches Jax threw that inning to be put in play. leaving Jax to return to the dugout and get into a thousand-yard stare trance wondering how did the game get away so quickly:
Jax finished the evening with 10 strikeouts and 16 swings and missed on 81 pitches, but those three consecutive plate appearances evaporated the thin margin for error the Rays had tonight as Cam Schlittler simply overpowered the Rays lineup tonight. Schlitter struck out 8 batters, walked none, while scattering four singles on the evening. His night could be best summed up by how he deposed of Jonathan Aranda the three times he faced him in this contest:
Rays pitchers struck out 17 Yankees while walking two and not allowing any singles, doubles, or triples. The Yankees had three hits on the evening – the two homers by Caballero and a 9th inning solo shot by Ben Rice. The Rays, according to StatHead, are the first team to ever lose such a game as a search for a similar game yielded no results. They are the third team this season to lose a game while striking out 17 or more opposing batters joining the Mariners (5/2/26) and the Red Sox (4/23/26). The last time a team won a game without a single, double, or a triple came back on July 29th, 2023 when the Dodgers defeated the Reds 3-2 on the strength of two homers and three walks.
This was simply an annoying loss because the Rays pitching was great over 27 plate appearances, yet five moments defined this game offensively and the Rays offense could do absolutely nothing to counterpunch set aside a jab run in the 5th. The Rays are not going to win many games when the top four hitters go 0 for 16 with 7 strikeouts as the quartet did tonight. They’ll try again tomorrow against Will Warren and a well-rested bullpen.
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