NEW YORK _ Going into Tuesday's game, the consensus from both Zoom rooms seemed to be that the reason the Rays had won seven of the first eight games between the teams was that they did a better job of doing the little things right.
Then they went out and did a bunch wrong _ three on the same messy play in the sixth inning that allowed three runs in _ and lost 5-3.
Sure, the Rays still have the American League's best record at 26-11, and a 3 {-game division lead over the Yankees with 23 games to play. Their overall six-game win streak, and their run of nine straight, were going to end at some point. As was their dominance over the Yankees, winning the first four of the season in New York and the last six overall.
But they also lost the edge that this was one of those years, where they were the team that figured out ways to win the close games, and the Yankees were the ones that let them get away.
The Yankees took a 2-0 lead Tuesday when DJ LeMahieu homered his first two times up off Rays fill-in starter Trevor Richards, who didn't have much trouble with anyone else.
The Rays tied it in the fifth, when Willy Adames led off with a double off Masahiro Tanaka and Kevin Kiermaier followed with a homer into the second deck beyond rightfield. That was the second straight day he did that, and the third consecutive game with a homer, all within a span of six at-bats.
Which led to the Rays making a mess of things.
Singles off reliever Rich Thompson had two Yankees on with one out. First, Kiermaier raced in a Gio Urshela liner to center, trying to make what would have been an impressive diving catch. But he came up short and the ball skipped by him, allowing the first two runs to score.
Next, Willy Adames, trying to get that second runner, sailed a relay throw from Austin Meadows high over the plate, which gave Urshela the chance to go home.
Then, Thompson, who had backed up the play, made a good toss to catcher Michael Perez that seemed in plenty of time, but Urshela got around the tag, and replay confirmed it.
Adames homered in the seventh to get the Rays back within two, but that was it.
The game got chippy at the end after Aroldis Chapman threw a pitch near the head of Mike Brosseau. The umpires gave warnings to both benches, Cash was ejected, then blasted the Yankees afterward for poor judgment and poor coaching, among other things.
Cash also warned the Yankees that he has "a whole stable of guys who throw 98 (mph)."
And to think, the Rays had been making themselves at home at Yankee Stadium this season. And maybe living in the Yankees' heads.
After getting knocked around by the Rays again Monday, Yankees ace Gerrit Cole wondered aloud if he was tipping his pitches. Tuesday afternoon, Yankees outfielder Mike Tauchman was calling for his teammates to find ways to raise their level of play against the Rays.
And the tabloids were running with it, the New York Daily News going with a Tuesday back page headline: COLE LOTTA TROUBLE.
Why had the Rays done so well?
"We know in playing the Rays, since I've been here in '18, when they kind of really started to come on, especially in the second half of the season, we knew we were looking at a very good team," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said before Tuesday's game. "Obviously they got even better last year, and this year they're just a very complete team that, the way I see it, it's a roster that their players really complement one another really well.
"We've played a number of close games with them that hasn't gone our way. You're going to go through in a season with different clubs. It happens to be the Rays this year, but hopefully we can start to turn that around.
"We've played them through some stretches where we're (coming) out of doubleheader into it. So it hasn't been the easiest schedule necessarily. But we understand we are up against an excellent team, one of the best teams in baseball. And if you don't play a complete game you're going to have a hard time beating them."
That seems to be part of the issue.
"They're obviously a talented team," Tauchman said. "In order to get to where we want to be we have to beat talented teams. We just have to play better. ... I just think as a team the margin of error when you play another good team is very, very small. So those little things become magnified, and as a group I don't think we've done as good a job as we're capable of."
Interesting because that's how this rivalry looked from the Rays' perspective for many years. They'd play the Yankees close, especially in New York, but do themselves in with mistakes or missed opportunities.
"We've been fortunate to come in here and find ways to win games that felt like in past seasons, we've been in a lot of ballgames but we also found ways to lose," Rays Cash said. "So credit the guys for not allowing that to carry over and just in going about their business and getting some early leads and give us a little bit of breathing room."
Consider that the Rays hadn't won four games at Yankee Stadium in a full season since 2014. That is also the last time they won a season series.
