Yankees blow 6-1, 8-4 leads before losing in 10 to Rays
Tampa Bay Rays' Jonathan Aranda, left, celebrates after his winning home run hit off of Yankees pitcher Yoendrys Gómez (94) during the 10th inning of a baseball game Saturday, April 19, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. Credit: AP/Mike Carlson
TAMPA, Fla. — Call it the first “gut-punch” loss — an oft-used phrase of manager Aaron Boone over the years to characterize a particularly rough setback — of 2025.
And on Saturday afternoon, it was still-not-quite-right closer Devin Williams sending the Yankees to the deck.
Williams flushed a four-run ninth-inning lead and, after the Yankees put runners at first and third with none out in the top of the 10th but failed to score, Jonathan Aranda’s walk-off two-run homer off Yoendrys Gomez in the bottom of the inning sent the Yankees to a 10-8 loss to the Rays in front of another sellout crowd of 10,046 at Steinbrenner Field.
“I mean, a four-run lead, you’d like to get in and get out,” said Williams, whose season ERA jumped to 9.00. “Made some good pitches, made some bad ones. Not enough good ones today.”
The Yankees (13-8), whose winning streak was snapped at five games, built a 6-1 lead in the top of the fourth and still led 8-4 entering the bottom of the ninth.
Williams got Kameron Misner to ground to first, but third baseman Oswaldo Cabrera threw high to first on Jose Caballero's grounder to begin Williams’ unraveling. The play inexcusably was scored a hit — Caballero would have been out by nearly two feet with an accurate throw — and when Cabrera's throw went out of play (that part was scored an error), the Rays had a runner on second with one out.
Williams walked former Yankee Ben Rortvedt, hitting .056 entering the day, and Chandler Simpson, a speedster prospect who stole 104 bases last year in Triple-A and was making his first big-league start, hit a ground-rule double to make it 8-5. Yandy Diaz’s infield single to short brought the Rays within 8-6, and after pinch runner Taylor Walls stole second, lefthanded-hitting Brandon Lowe muscled a 1-and-2 changeup to left-center for a two-run single that tied it at 8-8.
“The changeup to Lowe is one I’d like to have back,” Williams said.
The Rays (9-12) could have done more damage, but from his backside, Cabrera started an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play on a sharp grounder hit by Junior Caminero to force extra innings.
“A lot of soft contact,” Aaron Boone said of what he saw from Williams in the ninth. “I think with Caballero running, [Cabrera] probably laid back on the ball a little bit too much and then the walk to Rortvedt and Simpson kind of dumped one in over there and a little soft roller to short where Yandy’s able to get down the line quick enough. Didn’t bounce our way. The walk in there hurt us, obviously.”
The Yankees blew a chance to bail out Williams in the 10th. Ghost runner Anthony Volpe went to third on a leadoff single by Trent Grisham, who had hit his fifth homer of the season in the second to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead, but the Yankees could not bring him in against righthander Edwin Uceta. Cody Bellinger and Cabrera both struck out swinging before pinch hitter J.C. Escarra flied to right.
Aranda, swinging at a 1-and-1, 94-mph fastball, ended it quickly in the bottom half.
“They put some good at-bats together there at the end,” Aaron Judge said. “That’s what the Rays have always done. They put the ball in play, they make things happen and we just couldn’t close this one out.”
Judge had another standout day at the plate, going 3-for-5 with three RBIs, giving the reigning AL MVP a .397 average with a 1.236 OPS and 25 RBIs in 21 games.
Judge’s two-run single and Austin Wells’ sacrifice fly in the fourth made it 6-1, but Carlos Carrasco gave all three runs back in the bottom half to make it 6-4. Carrasco, excellent his last time out against the Royals — he allowed one run and one hit in five innings — didn’t come close to that Saturday, giving up four runs and six hits.
The bullpen, other than Williams, again was terrific, with Ian Hamilton (two innings), Mark Leiter Jr. and Luke Weaver combining to throw four scoreless innings.
Another silver lining in the loss: It appears the Yankees caught a break with Ben Rice, one of the club’s best hitters to start the season. The DH was hit on the left elbow by Manuel Rodriguez's 88-mph slider in the fourth inning. Rice stayed in the rest of the inning but was sent during the game to a local hospital for X-rays and a CT scan, both of which came back negative.
“It’s definitely pretty sore,” said Rice, who couldn’t say for certain that he will be right back in the lineup on Sunday but seemed relieved that there wasn’t worse news than that. “I was definitely worried about it.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
More Yankees headlines
