NEW YORK — Tampa Bay completed a three-game American League Division Series sweep with a 4-3 win over New York in Game 3 at Yankee Stadium, leaving the Yankees in what manager Aaron Boone called a "broken clubhouse" after an agonizing offensive collapse in front of a sellout crowd of nearly 49,000.
The defining moment came with two outs in the bottom of the sixth with New York trailing 4-2. George Lombard Jr. walked on five pitches and Anthony Volpe drilled a 95 mph sinker from Rays reliever Griffin Jax to left field, where Victor Mesa Jr. went back to the wall. A fan reached over the fence and interfered, echoing the 1996 ALCS play when 12-year-old Jeffrey Meier reached over the right-field wall on a Derek Jeter drive against Baltimore's Tony Tarasco. Volpe circled the bases before the umpiring crew huddled and consulted Major League Baseball's Replay Operations Center, located about 11 miles from Yankee Stadium. "After viewing all relevant angles, the replay official definitively determined the spectator interfered with the ball over the field of play. The ball would not have left the playing field nor would it have been caught," the replay center said. Volpe was sent back to second base, Lombard Jr. scored, and Boone said he had no issue with the call and felt the umpires got it right.
Game 3 reeked of desperation from the lineup card, with Jazz Chisholm benched and Trent Grisham moved to the leadoff spot. Still trailing by one in the eighth, oft-injured Giancarlo Stanton was called upon for just his second appearance since April 24 after a calf injury and struck out swinging in his only at-bat. Bryan Baker, who saved all three games of the series, struck out Grisham to end it and sent Tampa Bay to its third-ever ALCS appearance against either the Cleveland Guardians or Chicago White Sox.
"But for us, there's just no easy way. It's a broken clubhouse. It's what you go through as a team, as a family over the last eight, nine months getting ready for this, and there's just -- it's the worst," Boone said after taking about 30 minutes to meet the media. "So you go through a lot as a group and then it's just sudden end. It's the worst fricking feeling in the world. You know, again, offering that perspective with all due respect. And I have that perspective of we are playing a game. I understand that. But it doesn't lessen the pain of the ending, you know, and hopefully that's something that again continues to fuel guys that are going through this for the first time and then those of us that have been through it a lot." The numbers backed the frustration: New York scored five runs in the ALDS and hit .130 with a .192 on-base percentage and .239 slugging.
Pitching was not the problem, but the offense faces an offseason reset. Grisham and Chisholm will become free agents at season's end, and unless something drastic happens there should be no scenario where both return in 2027. Three-time AL MVP Aaron Judge, who did not appear in a game after Sept. 16 and played only 66 games all year, turns 35 in April and is expected to be healthy, while Stanton will be 37 next month and could be entering the final year of his 13-year, $325 million contract, which includes a club option for 2028. The emergence of 27-year-old Ben Rice, who hit a team-leading 41 home runs, offers a foundation alongside Judge and Stanton as New York confronts a now 16-year championship drought and a tentative March 25 Opening Day home game against the Toronto Blue Jays that might not happen. The sweep follows Aaron Boone deferring Yankees future talk after the ALDS exit.