Ben Rice can't do it alone: Yankees face elimination after another offensive letdown

It's every Yankee fan's October nightmare: the pinstriped bats have gone cold and there's no Aaron Judge coming to save them, at least in this series. He's out with a calf injury. After a splurge against the fading Red Sox in the Wild Card Series, the Bronx Bombers have turned that nickname into a punch line of sorts in this best-of-five AL Division Series against Tampa Bay.

"Whatever it takes, we've got to do it offensively and we've gotta be able to score some runs and do a better job of preventing (them,)" Aaron Boone said in the postgame news conference room.

It can only get better, right? In two games against the Rays, the Yankees have scored exactly twice. Both runs came in Game 2, when Ben Rice slammed two solo home runs. They have all of five hits -- Rice's home runs, two doubles by Austin Wells and a single by Cody Bellinger . They are 5-for-58 in the series (.086) with a .145 on-base percentage, .224 slugging and .369 OPS.