Drew Rasmussen was four outs from baseball immortality on Saturday night, and he made the most heavily armed lineup in the American League look utterly ordinary. The Rays right-hander took a no-hitter into the eighth inning of Tampa Bay's 1-0 ALDS-opening win over the Yankees in St. Petersburg — the deepest no-hit bid in franchise history, and the deepest any postseason team has ever carried one against New York. He finished with 10 strikeouts, two walks and exactly one hit allowed, retiring the final 16 Yankees he faced.
The bid died, as so many do, in cruelty. Austin Wells finally solved Rasmussen with a drive down the right-field line in the eighth — and was promptly thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple, the loudest sound at the ballpark for about ten seconds. The night's only run had come hours earlier, when Jonathan Aranda turned on a 2-2 changeup from Gerrit Cole and deposited it over the right-center wall in the third. Cole took the loss: one run, five hits in five innings.
For the Yankees, it was total silence after an 18-2 wild-card blitz of Boston — and without captain Aaron Judge, left off the ALDS roster with a strained right calf. Bryan Baker closed out a 1-2-3 ninth with two strikeouts for his first career postseason save. Game 2 is Monday, back in St. Petersburg, and the Yankees suddenly look very mortal.
