NEW YORK -- After their losses to the Yankees this season, the Rays talked about New York’s ability to take advantage of mistakes throughout a game. That proved to be their Achilles' heel again in a 6-2 loss in the first game of a straight doubleheader on Thursday at Yankee Stadium.

After a one-hour and 26-minute rain delay to start the day, the Rays’ offense came out swinging against Yankees starter Domingo German. Austin Meadows and Yandy Díaz opened the game with back-to-back home runs to give Tampa Bay the early two-run lead. It was the seventh time this season the Rays have gone back-to-back.

But in the second inning, a defensive misplay by Diaz on a Didi Gregorius popup opened the door for the Yanks’ offense to do some damage against starter Yonny Chirinos. Two batters later, Gio Urshela connected on a two-run homer off Chirinos to tie the score at 2.

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“The wind fooled me a little bit,” Diaz said in Spanish. “The ball came more into the field, and I just lost sight of the ball.”

As the Rays’ offense went quiet again against German, the Yankees kept attacking and ultimately took full advantage of their scoring chances in the fifth inning. Gary Sanchez gave New York a 3-2 lead on a 110.2-mph grounder against a drawn-in Tampa Bay infield that Diaz couldn’t quite handle. Luke Voit followed with an RBI single to make it 4-2, and Urshela finished it off with his third hit of the night against Chirinos, an RBI double that made it 5-2.

“It’s a tough play, they call it the hot corner for a reason,” said manager Kevin Cash when asked about the grounder hit at Diaz. “He hit it hard."

Cash added that usually when a player can't corral a ball he can knock it down with his body, but in this case, "It popped up and got by and allowed a run to score.”

Chirinos, who has pitched well this season for the Rays and against the Yanks, allowed five runs (four earned) on nine hits and struck out eight in five innings. He began the day averaging just over 14 pitches per inning this season, but finished with 20.8 pitches per inning on Thursday.

It also appeared that he wasn’t in his usual rhythm, as he stepped off the mound multiple times, including three straight times in the fifth inning.

“I think the Yankees forced that,” Cash said. “Yonny is still a young pitcher, but we’ve got to adjust off that. When guys get on second base, it seems like the whole momentum of the game shifts, goes slower. It puts the advantage with New York.

“They have a bunch of good hitters, we already know they’re going to make you throw a lot of pitches, but it seemed like the time in between pitches added up. And then we didn’t do some things on defense. Uncharacteristic things on defense.”

Chirinos said that he was just trying to make sure his pitches were well located, and that he wasn’t affected by the powerful Yanks lineup.

“Every time I pitch, I never pay too much attention at the opposing lineup,” Chirinos said. “I trust my pitches and things just didn’t work out how I wanted it to today.”

The Rays have taken a lead at some point in 13 of the 16 games against the Yankees this season, but they have a 5-11 record against New York.

“It’s not tough [to beat the Yanks], but we haven’t been able to score runs,” Diaz said. “They’ve capitalized on all of their moments, and we haven’t. They’ve just scored more runs.”