​After striking out 17 times in each of the first two games of this series, the Yankees finally showed more contact at the plate today, but the approach yielded far worse results than their 5-run opener and 4-run follow-up. They were shut out for the sixth time this season, managing just six hits and drawing no walks. Yandy Díaz went 4-for-4, Jonathan Aranda drove in all three Rays runs, and Shane McClanahan pitched 6.1 scoreless innings as the Yankees folded quietly, 3-0.
Paul Goldschmidt may be enduring the roughest stretch of his career. After a remarkable surge that carried the offense through mid-June, the regression hit hard and all at once for the 38-year-old. He entered the game mired in a career-worst 0-for-30 skid, and his first-inning strikeout marked his eighth straight plate appearance with a whiff. He finished 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, tying for the second-longest hitless streak in franchise history at 34 consecutive at-bats, just two behind Gil McDougald’s 0-for-36 in 1959.
Gerrit Cole’s fastball velocity and location at the bottom of the zone looked as sharp as in his prior start against Minnesota, averaging 97 mph and producing four of his six strikeouts. Yet he ran into trouble with a pair of pesky hits from the Rays’ first two hitters and received no run support from his offense. In the third, Yandy Díaz doubled with two outs and Jonathan Aranda followed with a single to bring Díaz home for the first tally. In the fifth, Nick Fortes and Díaz collected back-to-back singles, and Aranda doubled to drive Fortes in, though José Caballero made a sharp snap throw to the plate to retire Díaz on a Junior Caminero grounder, preventing further damage in the frame.
The Yankees tried to manufacture runs with small-ball tactics in the second inning, but the Rays beat them at the fundamentals. Jasson Domínguez reached on a one-out swinging bunt, then advanced to third on a well-judged read of Anthony Volpe’s bloop single to shallow left field. They attempted a safety squeeze on the very first pitch to Max Schuemann, but Domínguez didn’t get a wide enough lead at third, Schuemann didn’t bunt the ball far enough down the third-base line, and a flawless play by McClanahan—backed by a clean glove-and-tag from Nick Fortes at home—nipped the rally in the bud as Wells popped out to strand two aboard. The failed squeeze deflated the Yankees, and McClanahan proceeded to retire 11 in a row beginning with the plate appearance at home.
New York wouldn’t muster a baserunner again until the sixth when José Caballero led off with a bunt single, only to see it erased in a blink via a strike-’em-out, throw-’em-out double play that also snuffed Aaron Boone’s challenge for better SEO. The inning—and the game—slipped away from the Yankees as the Rays salted away a 3-0 victory.