The Yankees’ brutal September continued in St. Pete.
Regular readers of this series will already know this, but if you happen to stumble across this as your introduction to the nitty gritty on the 2000 Yankees, know this: September was not a kind month to these Bombers. Despite their ultimate result, the end of the regular season was about as brutal as it can realistically get. Twenty-five years ago today, the Yankees were at the bottom of the barrel, suffering their way through a disheartening three-game series in St. Petersburg against the cellar-dwelling Devil Rays.
They had just been walked off, and in the fourth-to-last game of the regular season, things would not get any better for the Yankees, who seemed allergic to clinching the American League East. Their only ally was the calendar, as despite dropping a slew of ballgames of late, there were only a handful more to go.
September 27: Yankees 1, Devil Rays 11 (box score)
Record: 87-69 (1st in AL East, 4.5 games ahead)
The Yankees had a chance to wrap up the race in the East in this one, and as can probably be guessed — they did not. Denny Neagle was on the bump for New York in this one, and he worked a spotless first inning, which was just about the beginning and end of the fun for the Yankees in this one.
In the bottom half of the second, the Rays got to work, beginning with Ozzie Timmons’ single and a walk to John Flaherty. José Guillén was responsible for the big hit of the inning, when he took a 1-2 pitch into the seats in left-center, giving Tampa Bay a quick 3-0 lead. A failed pickoff attempt and a successful squeeze bunt later in the inning had the Devil Rays waltzing out of the second inning up 4-0 already.
They piled on again in the third inning, when Fred McGriff belted his 25th home run of the season, and 416th of his career. The blast put the D-Rays up 5-0, and effectively ended Neagle’s night on the mound. He made it through just three innings and allowed five runs in the potential AL East clincher, once again casting doubt on the Trade Deadline addition’s ability to handle a playoff start.
The Yankees finally got on the board in their half of the sixth, when Scott Brosius led the inning off with a double, before Chuck Knoblauch scored him with a single up the middle. Unfortunately, the pain would not subside on the defensive side of things, as the Rays continued to pile on.
Timmons hit a two-run home run in the fifth, and recorded another RBI in the seventh, a three-run inning that included a big double from Flaherty as well. The Tampa Bay bats had the Yankees’ number in this one, as they were ahead by a commanding 10-1.
For good measure, Randy Winn pitched in with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eight to put the Devil Rays up by an even 10 runs in this one, as things had gone from bad to worse for the Yankees in this game, and really this portion of the 2000 season. Unsurprisingly, the Yankees did not have a historic rally in their bones, and dropped this one by a score of 11-1. If you can do worse than a walk-off loss, the Yanks tried their best with a double-digit blowout.
With this loss, they Yankees dropped their 11th game out of their last 14, as this month of September proved to be a brutal test for this squad. Despite boasting as much as a nine-game lead in the East in the middle of the month, their lead in the East sat at 4.5. They were doing everything in their power to delay their divisional celebration, and things would not exactly trend upward after this.
We all know how this season wrapped up, but it is hard to believe just how poorly the regular season finished, including this brutal set at Tropicana Field.
Read the full 2000 Yankees Diary series here.
Category: General Sports
