Benches clear twice in 8th as Yankees fall to Rays, dropping yet another series

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As the oft-used Bill Parcells line goes, you are what your record says you are.

And the Yankees continue to show themselves to be the last-place team they’ve been for a while now.

Despite home runs by Kyle Higashioka, DJ LeMahieu and Anthony Volpe that turned an early two-run deficit into a two-run lead in the fourth, the Yankees fell to the Rays, 7-4, on Sunday afternoon at Tropicana Field.

The game included two benches-clearing incidents in the eighth inning after Albert Abreu hit Randy Arozarena. That was not a surprise, given the deep antipathy that has existed between these two franchises for years.

Given that the Yankees hit 12 Rays batters this season and were hit only twice themselves, it definitely was not a surprise. Four Rays were hit on Sunday and five were hit in the series.

The first time the benches cleared, Rays manager Kevin Cash approached Aaron Boone in the middle of the scrum.

“He’s telling me I’d be upset [if it was my players getting hit],” Boone said. “It certainly wasn’t on purpose, but I understand. When our guys get hit, [even] not on purpose, I don’t like it either. Unfortunately, sometimes it happens in the game. Obviously, [Sunday] it boiled over a little bit.”

The benches initially cleared when Abreu hit Arozarena with a 3-and-1, 96-mph sinker. Arozarena glared back at Abreu, who also hit him in a game here on May 5. Abreu walked toward the plate while saying something to Arozarena and the benches soon cleared.

“Right after I hit him, I’m trying to explain to him that I’m not trying to hit him, that’s not what I’m trying to do there,” Abreu said through his interpreter. “He was saying, ‘That’s the second time you hit me.’ ”

“I think it was on purpose,” Arozarena said through his interpreter in the Rays’ clubhouse. “If you look back at previous series, he’s hit me before. I’ve been hit in previous series before that.”

Arozarena then stole second and third. After he collected his helmet, which fell off as he ran to third, Arozarena and Abreu jawed at each other again and the benches emptied again. Brandon Lowe doubled him home to make it 7-4.

“Looking at it in a different view, that’s a last-place team, we don’t need to worry about it,” Lowe said, ultimately hitting the Yankees where it hurts. “We need to focus up on what we need to do down the stretch. But if they lose a guy, it’s not going to be quite as big of a deal as when we lose one of our guys.”

The Yankees (62-68), who are headed to Detroit for a four-game series against the Tigers, dropped two of three to the Rays (80-52) and have lost 12 of 14. They haven’t won a series since sweeping the Royals (41-91) from July 21-23 at the Stadium and are 11 games out of the third wild-card spot.

Higashioka and LeMahieu hit back-to-back homers in the third to tie it at 2-2 and Volpe hit his 18th homer, a two-run shot in the fourth, to give the Yankees a 4-2 lead. The advantage evaporated in a four-run sixth as a result of ineffective work by Ian Hamilton and Wandy Peralta.

Hamilton, who hit Isaac Paredes in the head with a 95-mph fastball in the fifth after replacing Carlos Rodon, allowed a two-out, two-run single by Harold Ramirez in the sixth to tie it at 4. It was a ball second baseman Gleyber Torres probably should have caught, but he didn’t get a good read on it off the bat. Lowe’s two-run single off Peralta later in the inning made it 6-4.

Hamilton offered a somewhat odd response to a question about understanding the Rays’ anger about being hit so often. “I understand it,’’ he said, “but at the same time, if they want to come over here, they can come over here, I guess. Wish we had another game against them . . . I think everyone in here wishes we had another game against them.”

Boone, meanwhile, all but waved off a question about the incidents acting as a spark for his team.

“That’s stuff’s all great and get you riled up and get you going, but it doesn’t help you get hits and make plays,” Boone said. “That’s what we have to do more consistently if we want to win games.”

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.