Yankees Rivalry Roundup: Tigers bite Rays back, Red Sox outlast Marlins on slam

And yes, there were absolutely misses. Camilo Doval and Jake Bird were terrible; they've since been traded. But while David Bednar 's success was expected … Brent Headrick , Paul Blackburn , and Fernando Cruz 2: Electric Boogaloo? They've helped this pitching staff stand up and carry the team during a wretched stretch for the bats. The bad news is that because said bats were, again, so wretched for so long, the Yankees were always playing close ballgames, and Aaron Boone had to ride the bullpen's best like mid-2000s Joe Torre or else risk close games falling into the hands of Doval, Bird, Ryan Yarbrough , or whoever the 26th man happened to be that day.

Well, now the worm has turned. It's more apparent for Cruz, who has surrendered 11 runs and five homers across his last 13.2 innings, but Headrick got hit hard last night as well. There is very little wiggle room at this point in the AL East race for the Yankees to be giving away ballgames when the offense actually shows up, but that's what happened . So … that's swell.

Yes, the Yankees could be 2.5 games back in the division now if they had held on to even one of their leads because the Tigers fully flipped the script from losing 4-1 to the Rays on Monday. The surrogate Bronx hero of the day was rookie Max Clark, the No. 3 overall pick from 2023 who debuted with Detroit just before they bid adieu to Tarik Skubal . The Rays were trying to steal a win with one of their Casey Legumina/Ian Seymour piggyback starts, but with the latter on for the fifth, Clark went yard in the Motor City for the first time: