What we learned after series vs. Tampa Bay Rays

NEW YORK – The Yankees couldn’t finish a comeback this time, and that ultimately cost them a chance at winning the series against the rival Tampa Bay Rays, owners of the top spot in the American League East and the best record in Major League Baseball.

Instead Aaron Boone’s club had to settle for a series split with Sunday’s 8-7 loss before a crowd of 42,116 at Yankee Stadium.

Anthony Volpe’s two-run home run in the eighth made it a one-run game, but that’s as close as the Yankees could get. Aaron Judge hit a long fly ball to left-center field with two outs in the ninth, but it fell just short of the wall and into Jose Siri’s glove.

“I think we’re in a good spot,” Judge said. “We’ve had some battles back and forth. We didn’t want to come in here and split the series. But they’re one of the best teams in baseball, and we battled back and forth.”

The loss cost the Yanks a chance to close the gap in the division to six games – instead they’ll exit the weekend eight games in back of Tampa Bay.

Clarke Schmidt couldn’t limit the Rays’ lineup, and Boone’s decision to give the ball to Albert Abreu, who owned a 5.09 ERA entering the day, with two outs in the top of the fifth backfired when Abreu surrendered a grand slam to Taylor Walls that put Tampa Bay up by four.

That negated Anthony Rizzo’s two-run blast in the third that gave the Yankees a one-run lead.

And yet despite all of that, the Yankees at least showed this weekend that they might be more ready to put up a fight than it had appeared just a week ago, when they couldn’t hit and had endured key injury after key injury.

Getting Harrison Bader and Aaron Judge back has helped reignite the lineup – not to mention the importance of Bader’s defense in centerfield.

“They’re in a really good place as far their play, their focus,” Boone said of his team. “I feel like they’re making good adjustments. Disappointing to not finish it off today, but I do feel very pleased with where this group is…