There is more history with the Yankees than anybody else in baseball, and in sports. So at a time like this, Yankees fans look to October history that works for them, and not against them, as they look for their team to flip the script against a Rays team that has been better in all ways in the first two games of this AL Division Series. That’s why one of the first places their fans will go -- maybe the best place -- will be The Flip.
It happened almost 25 years ago on Oct. 13 in 2001, Game 3 of another ALDS, the Yankees against the A’s. The Yankees were down 0-2, same as they are right now. The A’s had produced a better regular-season record than the Yankees that year, same as the Rays just did. And the Yankees didn’t just lose the first two games against them, they lost the first two games at home.
Then came Game 3, with the Yankees clinging to a 1-0 lead. Derek Jeter came all the way across the infield to collect an overthrown relay throw before making that iconic backhand flip to Jorge Posada. The throw beat Jeremy Giambi to the plate by a step. The rest, well, really is history. The Yankees won that game and came back to win that series, and they ended up in the World Series, where they lost in seven to the Diamondbacks after not coming all the way back from an 0-2 hole.
But that’s not the kind of history for which Yankees fans are looking for right now, the way they’re sure not looking at last October, when they couldn’t survive 0-2 against the Blue Jays. Right now, they’re just looking for the good stuff. They’re looking back to 2017, when the Yankees came from 0-2 down against the Guardians in the ALDS. Looking at The Flip as they try to flip the script and get out of this hole against a Rays team that has looked like as tough an out as there is across these first two games.
“We’ve got the chance to do something great,” Aaron Boone said after the Rays' 5-2 win in Game 2, and the Yankees had as many errors as they did hits.
“We’ve responded to difficult times all season,” Boone added. “Now we gotta do it again.”
Last year, it was the bat of Aaron Judge -- in the postseason series of his career -- that gave them a chance at Yankee Stadium against the Blue Jays. Judge hit that monster home run in Game 3 high off the left-field foul pole on a night when the Yankees weren’t just coming back from 0-2 down in games, they were coming from 6-1 down in Game 3. They didn’t complete the comeback, we all know that, losing their season the very next night. But they had at least given themselves a chance after playing as badly and looking as badly as they had in Toronto. It is the same chance their manager was talking about one year later, just in St. Petersburg late Monday night.
“We gotta get a game,” Boone said, as he prepares to give the ball to Max Fried, who gave Boone a terrific start in Game 2 of the Yankees-Red Sox Wild Card Series: six innings, six strikeouts, three hits, one run.
Of course, these Rays aren’t those Red Sox. Their ace, Drew Rasmussen, looked like the best pitcher in the world in Game 1, nearly no-hitting the Yankees. They keep putting the ball in play, they keep putting pressure on the defense and they don’t beat themselves. Once they’d clinched the division at Yankee Stadium during the last week of the regular season, they had a record of 7-6 against the Yankees this season. Now, it’s 9-6.
The Yankees scored 18 runs against the Red Sox. They’ve now scored two in two games against the Rays. Those both came on home runs from Ben Rice, trying to do something or anything to carry his team the way Judge did last October until he didn’t. In four postseason games so far, Rice is hitting .467 with four home runs and eight RBIs. He’s carrying the offense the way he did in Judge’s absence all summer.
Now the Yankees look at him to at least carry them to Thursday night. Even at a time when only Rice is hitting, and after the Yankees just kicked the ball all over Tropicana Field, their two starters in the series -- Gerrit Cole, Cam Schlittler -- still have given up just three earned runs. They can still pitch. But their starters, when healthy, have done that all season. Remember, this is a rotation where all four of Boone’s starters have been aces: Cole and Schlittler in New York, Fried in Atlanta and Carlos Rodón with the White Sox.
The Yankees still don’t have Judge. But they really haven’t had him for months, and still finished 45-30 before finally watching the Rays celebrate their division title at Yankee Stadium, same as the Blue Jays did a year ago, same as the Dodgers did in the ’24 World Series. Now they try to make sure it doesn’t happen on their field again. Try to give themselves a chance to do something great. Gotta get a game.