GAME NIGHT: 2026 ALDS, Game 3 – NYY (0-2) vs. TB (2-0); TBS, TRUTV, HBO MAX
The nervous, anxious, tense, and sloppy Yankees must do the impossible tonight: relax while fending off elimination.
But for a team that felt the pressure of being down 1-0 was insurmountable, it’s improbable to believe they’ll come back in this series, let alone win Game 3.
They don’t have a choice, though. They must save their season.
A 2-0 hole is already difficult enough to overcome in the ALDS. In 93 best-of-five MLB series when a team has led 2-0, only 10 have come back to win. Also, in his nine years as manager, Aaron Boone’s Yankees have never beaten a higher-seeded team in a traditional postseason series.
Boone can only do so much right now, though. The Yankees embarrassed themselves on Monday, committing four errors and at least nine defensive miscues. In a pivotal road game against a better team, they made it even easier for the Rays to win.
Tampa Bay now has momentum securely on its side. Even if the Yankees survive tonight, they will still have to face Drew Rasmussen in Game 4. He carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning in Game 1, and the Yankees lost 1-0.
The Yankees will be lucky to get to Game 4, though. Last year, after falling 2-0 to the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALDS, the Yankees extended the series in Game 3 when Aaron Judge hit a massive home run off the left-field foul pole. They still lost the next day.
Judge is not on the ALDS roster this year, but Ben Rice has delivered at every turn. He homered twice on Monday, extending his postseason total to four in as many games. He became the first player in Yankees history to record multiple multi-homer games in a single postseason.
But the Yankees’ offense in the ALDS has started, ended, and revolved around Rice. He is the only player with an RBI, and aside from Austin Wells and Cody Bellinger, the rest of the team is 0-for-38. The team’s .086 batting average is the worst in any two-game postseason span in American League history.
Perhaps Yankee Stadium will awaken the Yankees’ bats. They outscored the Red Sox 18-2 in their two-game Wild Card Series sweep. The Yankees have not won a playoff road game against a non-AL Central team since Game 1 of the 2019 ALCS, so they need to fill up on home juice.
“I feel like this group has done a really good job all year of bouncing back [from] a tough game,” Boone said. “[We’ve been] through some tough moments in the season and handled it very well, so that’s my expectation this time. It has to be. Obviously, we’re completely up against it now.”
Changing the lineup is Boone’s first step. He put eight lefties in his first two lineups in this series. The Yankees have faced a righty in each of their last three playoff games, so Boone has relied heavily on platoon options. However, he barely used his bench in Game 2, even though he deployed a lineup that didn’t hit for 7 2/3 innings against Rasmussen.
The Yankees’ season lies on Max Fried’s shoulders. His girlfriend is pregnant and could give birth any day, so congratulations to Max. But the southpaw is focused on his team tonight. He is a ground ball pitcher, though, so the defense needs to wake up.
“You have to flush it and not let it affect you, but at the same time, use it as motivation to stop it right there and prove that it doesn’t define you, or that it isn’t [your] character, and it was like a freak game,” Fried said. “It’s important to have a little bit of pride.”
But it feels like the more the Yankees try to overcome their defensive woes, the more they pressure themselves. Their biggest focus in this series was to play clean baseball. That was the problem, though. The Yankees focused too much on their defense and got in their own heads. Now, they must dig themselves out of a 0-2 hole.
Schedule
8:00 (7:00 PM CDT): 2026 ALDS, Game 3 – NYY vs. TB; TBS, TRUTV, HBO MAX; SP: LHP Max Fried (5-5, 2.80 ERA, 104 K) vs. RHP Nick Martinez (15-6, 3.10 ERA, 109 K)
