A weekend that had all the trappings of an early-season hinge point ended with the Yankees just as far back from the Rays as when it started.
For all the positivity that came with two come-from-behind wins over Tampa, Sunday’s 8-7 loss to the Rays underscores the reality that it will not be so clean or so easy to turn the season around.
After their bullpen squandered leads on consecutive days, the Rays would not let the Yankees come back on them on a third straight occasion.
This lead, 8-4 after five innings, they could protect — albeit not without some struggles.
Minus a four-run blemish in the third, Tampa starter Zach Eflin put in a strong six innings, striking out nine and rarely giving the Yankees much to work with.
Not at any point against Eflin did a Yankee batter come to the plate with two men on.
Once Aaron Judge did, in the seventh, he singled in a run off Kevin Kelly. But Anthony Rizzo couldn’t keep the rally going, striking out after coming to the plate as the tying run.
An inning later, the Yankees got within 8-7 on Anthony Volpe’s two-run homer, setting the stage for what could have been the grand finale to the weekend of comebacks.
Instead, Jason Adam shut the door, setting down Oswaldo Cabrera, Gleyber Torres and Judge — the final out on a deep fly ball to left-center that had closer Jason Adam hanging his head off the bat and exhaling and patting his heart when center fielder Jose Siri corralled it on the warning track.
After going six innings for the first time all season five days earlier against Oakland, Clarke Schmidt began to struggle Sunday once the Rays came through the order for the third time.
Schmidt put three straight hitters on with a walk and two singles in the fifth, then was spared disaster on a diving play from Harrison Bader that resulted in a sacrifice fly.
That did turn out to be a fleeting avoidance, as Schmidt was pulled after walking the next hitter, Brandon Lowe, and Taylor Walls turned on a 1-2 changeup from Albert Abreu for a grand slam.
Finishing with seven earned runs on six hits, Schmidt was far from dominant prior to the decisive fifth inning, but the first two times through, the Rays had to grind and manufacture runs.
Yandy Diaz came around to score on the first after doubling and advancing twice on groundouts.
Isaac Paredes — who spelled Diaz after he left the game with left groin tightness — singled in Siri two innings later, then scored on Lowe’s sacrifice fly.
The Yankees, at that point, looked poised to rely on the same script that got them through Friday and Saturday. Two-run home runs from Cabrera and Rizzo in the bottom of the third gave them a 4-3 lead and the same energy that permeated through the Stadium an afternoon prior was back.
But this time, it faded.
Where a bunt single on Saturday led to a rally, this time it only led to Jake Bauers hitting into a 1-6-3 double play.
Where the Yankees played an errorless game the afternoon prior, they committed two infielding mishaps on the scoresheet Sunday.
That left the weekend, which started with what were unequivocally the two best wins of the season, with a particular feeling of dissatisfaction, the possibility of a neat and clean turnaround answered for the moment by dint of being unanswered.
There’s still plenty of time and plenty of potential with this Yankees team which, despite its divisional struggles, started Sunday in a wild-card spot. But that does not make its self-actualization a simple matter.