Yankees lose to Rays on extra-inning homer | Rapid reaction

Rays’ Jake Bauers crushes home run on first pitch of the 12th inning off Chasen Shreve to sink the Yankees, 7-6, at Tropicana Field on Sunday.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Losing in extra innings was surely tough.

Losing Gary Sanchez not long before might hurt even more.

The Yankees lost, 7-6, to the Rays in 12 innings when Jake Bauers crushed the first pitch of the inning from reliever Chasen Shreve over the center-field wall.

The Yankees’ bullpen had held Tampa Bay to not even one hit from the fourth inning until the end of the game.

That manager Aaron Boone went to Shreve, who had been terrible lately, was questionable, since closer Aroldis Chapman was available and had warmed up previously.

What it means

The Yankees fell into a first-place tie with the Red Sox in the American League East. Boston beat the Mariners earlier in the day.

The Yankees suffered their first three-game losing streak of the season.

Sanchez hurt

Sanchez left in the eighth inning, appearing to pull his groin after crossing first base trying to beat out a double play grounder.

Sanchez reached for the groin and doubled over in pain. Trainer Steve Donohue and manager Aaron Boone were beside Sanchez as they walked slowly off the field.

Backup Austin Romine immediately took over behind the plate the next inning.

Sanchez has dealt with calf issues and Boone gave him a few days off because he was “banged up” from June 10 through June 14. He missed the first month of last season with a right biceps strain.

Gardner missed putting the Yankees ahead in the eight by maybe a foot, smoking a double off the top of the wall in right-center field with two outs.

The Rays immediately walked Aaron Judge intentionally to get to Didi Gregorius, whose slow grounder to shortstop only meant that he would get thrown out by a step to end the inning.

Giancarlo Stanton, who had his fourth four-hit game of the year, ripped a solo shot off ex-Yankee Vidal Nuno to left field tie things at 6-6 to start the eighth inning.

Stanton crushed the 1-2 breaking ball, galloping twice up the line before the ball sneaked over the wall. When it disappeared into the seats, Stanton clapped hard and held his head high rounding first base.

The rest of the Yankees have combined for four four-hit games.

Domingo on Domingo

German didn’t have anything working, getting just five swings and misses in 64 pitches. He lasted just three innings, coughing up nine hits while striking out two. 

German had entered coming off a brilliant seven-inning, one-run outing against the Mariners in his last start. The 25-year-old had strung together four straight starts of at least six innings.

Sunday’s outing was his shortest since lasting only 3 2/3 innings in a loss to the Rangers on May 22. It was German’s shortest outing as a starter in his career. German has been filling in for Jordan Montgomery (Tommy John surgery).

How it happened

After the Yankees went down 1-2-3 in the first inning, the Rays hit Domingo German hard. Kevin Kiermaier tripled to left-center field on German’s first pitch. Two pitches later, Duffy doubled home Kiermaier. The Yankees’ deficit grew to 2-0 when Carlos Gomez, whose walk-up song is the “SpongeBob SquarePants” theme, doubled to left to score Duffy.

The Yankees struck back in the third. Andujar’s three-run shot off Rays starting pitcher Matt Andriese went about halfway into the left-field bleachers — breaking a streak in which the Yankees scored just one run in their previous 26 innings. That made it 3-2 New York.

The Rays retook the lead in the third, hammering German again, this time for three more runs.

Jake Bauers led off with a triple that bounced all the way to the center field wall. Following Carlos Gomez’s one-out single that brought in Bauers, Jesus Sucres’ two-out double to left field brought in Gomez and Mallex Smith, who had singled.

The Yankees creeped back into the game with two run in the 

NEXT

Monday: Yankees RHP Jonathan Loaisiga (1-0, 3.12 ERA) vs. Rays righty Vince Velasquez (5-7, 4.82 ERA) at 7:05 p.m. at Citizens Bank Park.

Brendan Kuty may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @BrendanKutyNJ. Find NJ.com Yankees on Facebook.