In theory, for a team that needs to win three straight games to extend its season, the Yankees should have a shot with Max Fried, Carlos Rodón and Cam Schlittler in line to start. 

Except there are two ways to sabotage the strong pitching the Yankees pinned their October hopes on, and they have shown both through the first two games of the ALDS: horrific defense and a disappearing lineup. 

And so, the Yankees returned home on the brink of elimination, needing to find their gloves and their bats starting in Game 3 on Wednesday against the Rays to avoid another early start to the offseason. 

“I feel like this group has done a really good job all year of bouncing back [from] a tough game, through some tough moments in the season and handled it all very well,” manager Aaron Boone said Tuesday. “So that’s my expectation this time. It has to be. Obviously we’re completely up against it now. 

“So we got to bring it on [Wednesday] night. But we also got to — it’s that level of focus with some calm to the whole situation, too, because you don’t want to get in a situation where you’re pressing out there, trying to do more than you’re capable of. It’s about doing your job right now.” 

The Yankees will try to become the first team to come back from a 2-0 deficit in a best-of-five series since they did it in the 2017 ALDS against Cleveland. 

New York Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake speaks with pitcher Max Fried on the mound in the sixth inning of Game 2 of the American League Wild Card Series against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium, Wednesday, September 30, 2026. Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post

Boone said he was considering lineup changes for Game 3 against Rays right-hander Nick Martinez after using the same batting order for the first two games. Ben Rice and Austin Wells are a combined 4-for-12 with two home runs, two doubles and a walk, but the rest of the lineup is just 1-for-46 with two walks. 

“The rest of us got to step up a little bit more,” said Ryan McMahon, who could be replaced by José Caballero at third base, with his bat not offering much and his error the first of four the Yankees committed in Game 2. 

New York Yankees third baseman Ryan McMahon reacts after making an error in the first inning of Game 2 of the ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays, Monday, October 5, 2026, at Tropicana Field. Charles Wenzelberg for New York Post

The way the Yankees looked at the plate through the first two games of this series was reminiscent of too many games this summer, all without Aaron Judge, when they did not offer much resistance against opposing starters. They have yet to take a lead against the Rays after never trailing against the Red Sox in their wild-card series. 

“I think for us, it’s just going to be working some at-bats against their guys,” Spencer Jones said. “We’ve been getting out early in counts and killing our momentum. So for us, I think it’s just going to be about lengthening those innings, whether it be long at-bats, walks, those kind of things. We haven’t really applied a lot of pressure on that side yet.” 

New York Yankees center fielder Spencer Jones reacts after striking out swinging in the seventh inning of Game 1 of the ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field, Saturday, October 3, 2026. Charles Wenzelberg for New York Post

Of course, the Yankees also need to play cleaner baseball behind their pitchers, which they knew was essential coming into the series. Boone sat in his office at Tropicana Field on Saturday afternoon, a few hours before the first pitch of Game 1, and reiterated the need for the Yankees to take care of the ball. That came against the backdrop of opposing teams’ scouting reports on the Yankees over the years including to put the ball in play and put pressure on their defense. 

“You got to beat us somehow,” Boone said. 

The Rays certainly have. In Game 1, they combined shutdown pitching from Drew Rasmussen with taking advantage of Austin Wells’ brutal baserunning blunder in the eighth inning. In Game 2, they continued to put the ball in play and watched the Yankees crumble, their four errors — and a handful of defensive miscues on top of those — opening the floodgates for another Rays win. 

The Yankees have largely been better defensively this year than they were in 2024, when it proved to be their downfall in the World Series. But when the defense and baserunning and hitting against strong pitching all come up small in the postseason, it fuels a recurring nightmare the Yankees have lived through in recent Octobers. 

“You have to flush it and not let it affect you, but at the same time use it as motivation to kind of stop it right there and prove that that doesn’t define you, or that isn’t the character and it was just kind of like a freak game,” Fried said Tuesday. “It’s important to have a little bit of pride and to be able to say, ‘That’s not us — and we’re going to prove it.’ ”