ALDS Game 2 Player of the Game: Ben Rice

If you're looking for a hero in this 5-2 loss at Tropicana Field, you're going to have to keep looking. At least unlike Saturday there was a number above zero on New York's side of the scorecard. Ben Rice provided those two tallies with a pair of home runs to right, the first of which provided a brief spark of hope that the Yankees might not totally butcher this thing—before they totally butchered it just two innings later.

Rice hit a flyout in his first at-bat, precipitating a perfect first time through the order for Rays starter Freddy Peralta. But his second time up promised a better future for this game and this series. Fastball Freddy, as the broadcast referred to him roughly a dozen times throughout the night, started Rice off with said fastball before abandoning it in favor of his changeup. He made three successive attempts to lure Rice into chasing the pitch—and his third try was successful to bring the count to 2-2.

That whiff seemed to further convince Peralta to stick with his change, especially knowing that Rice is one of the league's best fastball hitters. So for the fourth straight time, he went changeup away—but he left this one in the strike zone, along the outside corner. Rice capitalized, shooting it over the right field wall for a game-tying solo blast.