Rasmussen shines after paternity leave as Rays sweep Yankees 5-4

Drew Rasmussen turned a family interruption into a statement start, carving through the Yankees for six scoreless innings as the Rays held on for a 5-4 win that completed their first three-game sweep of New York since April 16-18, 2021.

Rasmussen allowed one hit, struck out seven and did not walk a batter while needing only 76 pitches, 51 for strikes. The right-hander had been scratched from an April 8 start against the Cubs when his wife, Stevie, went into labor with the couple’s second child, a girl. The baby was delivered Tuesday night, Rasmussen went on the paternity list Wednesday and later moved to MLB’s family medical emergency list before rejoining Tampa Bay for the series finale.

The Rays gave him immediate support. Chandler Simpson and Junior Caminero opened the game with consecutive singles, and Simpson scored on a groundout for the first run. In the second, Cedric Mullins tripled and came home on Richie Palacios’ single, then Palacios later scored to make it 3-0. Simpson finished 3 for 4 with two runs, his seventh stolen base and a streak of reaching base in all 15 games this season.

New York never fully recovered from the early pressure. Cam Schlittler allowed three runs over five innings, and the Yankees’ bullpen could not shut the door as Tampa Bay kept forcing the game into leverage innings. Aaron Judge tried to change the tone in the ninth with a 415-foot, two-run homer, his fourth of the season, trimming the deficit to one before Mason Englert finished for his first save.

The win lifted Tampa Bay above .500 for the first time this season at 8-7 and left New York at 0-6 in one-run games, a sharp sign of how fragile the Yankees have been in tight spots. The loss also stretched New York’s skid to five games in front of 20,796 fans at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Afterward, Kevin Cash called Rasmussen “outstanding” and praised how efficiently he worked, while Shane McClanahan said Rasmussen “is special” as a person. For a Rays club still hovering around break-even, the sweep offered more than a hot April result: it showed how quickly a team can look stable when starting pitching, contact hitting and late relief all line up against a division heavyweight.