Yankees shut down by Rays in opener of 4-game series at the Stadium

Quick, bring back the Oakland Athletics.

The Yankees beat up on Major League Baseball’s worst team earlier this week in a three-game sweep to give the club a surge of confidence in advance of a big series against the Tampa Bay Rays.

The first game of four brought a crash back to reality.  

The Yankees, who outscored Oakland 28-10, produced all of four hits in an 8-2 loss to the Rays Thursday night in front of 37,686 at the Stadium. Two of the hits and both runs came in the ninth inning, the outcome not in doubt at that point.

“It’s tough,” said Aaron Judge, who went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. “Especially this team is sitting at the top, you want to try to gain some ground on them and get a couple of wins here and keep it close. But we’ve got four games here at home and looking forward to that next one.”  

The last-place Yankees (21-18), who had scored at least seven runs in each of their last four games but did not put a runner in scoring position until Willie Calhoun doubled leading off the ninth, fell nine games behind the AL East-leading Rays, who despite just losing two of three in Baltimore improved to 30-9.

The night overall was a splash of cold water for the Yankees, who lost two of three last weekend at the Rays but played three one-run games, all of them without Judge, who returned from the injured list Tuesday.

Tampa Bay’s Drew Rasmussen (4-2, 2.62), who allowed two hits over 5 2/3 scoreless innings vs. the Yankees last Saturday night, was even better Thursday. The righthander allowed two hits over seven scoreless innings, striking out seven.

“We certainly haven’t solved him yet,” Aaron Boone said of the 27-year-old Rasmussen, who still has not allowed a run in his career against the Yankees, which spans 21 innings. “Handful of outings now against us, he’s kind of had his way.”

Said Judge: “You gotta tip your cap, but we have to come up with a better game plan in the box and execute it.”

Domingo German (2-3, 4.00), pitching better of late, was pretty good against one of MLB’s elite offenses, allowing two runs (one earned), three hits and three walks over 5 2/3 innings.

German, tagged for an unearned run in the fifth after an error by Anthony Rizzo, a four-time Gold Glove winner at first, did not make it out of the sixth.

After walking Taylor Walls with two outs in the inning, the Yankees brought on righthander Ron Marinaccio, among the best relievers in baseball to this point as batters were hitting just .132 against him. But Marinaccio wasn’t sharp Thursday as he allowed a hit to the first batter, Luke Raley, then hit Manuel Margot to load the bases for Josh Lowe. The rightfielder fell behind 0-and-1 before roping a changeup, Marinaccio’s best pitch, off the wall in right-center for a three-run double to make it 4-0.

“He put a good swing on that one,” Marinaccio said. “It definitely wasn’t one that I felt like was a terrible pitch.”

The Rays added a run in the seventh against Albert Abreu on Walls' RBI double, then put up three more in the eighth against Ryan Weber, called up earlier in the day from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Included in the inning was Josh Lowe’s two-run homer, his eighth of the season.

“(We were) not able to mount much offensively,” Boone said. “But it’s also over with now and we have an important one with our ace (Gerrit Cole) going tomorrow and we have to go get it.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

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.