Rice’s two homers and McMahon’s grand slam power Yankees past Rays, 9-2

A four-inning surge that settled the shape of the night

Rice’s first-inning homer gave New York the early edge, but the game really bent in the Yankees’ direction one inning later and then snapped in the third. McMahon’s single to center brought home Spencer Jones in the second, George Lombard Jr. added a solo shot in the third, and then McMahon delivered the swing that made the rest of the night feel like management rather than suspense: a grand slam to right that scored Luis García Jr., Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Jose Caballero with him.

That burst pushed the Yankees to seven runs before Tampa Bay had recorded a run of its own, and Rice was not done. He hit his second homer in the fourth, this one to right-center, giving him two long balls and two RBI on a 2-for-3 night. McMahon finished 2-for-3 with five RBI, and Lombard Jr.’s home run meant three Yankees combined for all four of the club’s homers.

The most punishing part for Tampa Bay was that this was not a game lost to free passes. Mason Englert walked only one batter and struck out six, but New York turned nine hits into sustained scoreboard damage. Englert was charged with eight earned runs in 3 2/3 innings, and four of the nine hits against him left the yard. Casey Legumina at least brought order afterward, covering 1 1/3 scoreless innings and preventing the margin from getting even more lopsided before the Yankees’ later insurance run.

Cole gave Tampa Bay only brief openings

The Rays did answer, just not often enough and not in clusters. Liam Hicks scored on Jonny DeLuca’s fourth-inning double to right, and Cedric Mullins followed in the fifth with a solo homer to right. Those two swings accounted for all of Tampa Bay’s offense, and they stood out because almost everything else against Gerrit Cole was hard work for very little return.

Cole’s line was sturdy and uncomplicated: five innings, three hits, two runs, two walks and seven strikeouts on 91 pitches. Tampa Bay sent only 19 men to the plate against him, struck out seven times and collected just the three hits from DeLuca, Mullins and Richie Palacios. Hicks and Victor Mesa Jr. drew the two walks, but the Rays never built the kind of inning that could seriously chip away at the lead.

That matters because a comeback against a homer-heavy opponent usually requires traffic, not isolated moments. Tampa Bay got one run on a double and one on a solo shot, but no multi-hit inning appears in the offensive line, and six Rays starters finished hitless. Against a pitcher missing bats at Cole’s rate, that left the Rays chasing the game with very little margin to waste.

Our take: this one was decided by damage on contact

Analysis: the cleanest explanation for this result is that New York did the expensive kind of hitting and Tampa Bay did not. The Yankees drew only one walk all night, so this was not an offense grinding the game into submission. It was an offense turning mistakes into immediate runs. Four homers, including McMahon’s grand slam and Rice’s pair, overwhelmed the value of Tampa Bay’s otherwise respectable strikeout and walk totals on the mound.

For the Rays, the first correction is obvious because the evidence is blunt: they have to reduce the home-run damage before anything else can matter. New York’s scoring moved from a solo homer in the first to an RBI single in the second, then exploded on two third-inning homers. That sequence shows how quickly a manageable game became a runaway one. Offensively, Tampa Bay also needs more than three hits and two walks against five innings of starting pitching. Mullins and DeLuca produced the RBI, but the lineup as a whole went 3-for-17, and that leaves too much to too few hitters.

For the Yankees, the only mild note of restraint is that this was a power win more than a fully rounded offensive game. They left eight runners on base and drew just one walk, which suggests there is still room to create offense when the ball is not leaving the park. On this night, though, that is a small critique beside the larger truth: Rice and McMahon supplied the thunder, Cole limited the response, and New York made the matchup look simpler than a 27-out game usually is.

Scoring moments

1. 1st Inning

   Rice homered to right (379 feet).

2. 2nd Inning

   McMahon singled to center, Jones scored.

3. 3rd Inning

   Lombard Jr. homered to right center (384 feet).

4. 3rd Inning

   McMahon homered to right (332 feet), García Jr. scored, Chisholm Jr. scored and Caballero scored.

5. 4th Inning

   DeLuca doubled to right, Hicks scored.

6. 4th Inning

   Rice homered to right center (383 feet).

7. 5th Inning

   Mullins homered to right (375 feet).