Stephen A. Smith Sounds Off After Yankees Game 2 Loss To Rays

The Yankees committed four errors during their loss to the Rays in the ALDS.

by Logan VanDine

Oct 6, 2026

Yankees are down 2-0 against the Rays in the ALDS.

Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images

Monday night was a night the New York Yankees would like to forget.

After being no-hit through nearly eight innings in Game 1 of the ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays, the Yankees had another letdown in Game 2.

New York dropped Game 2 of the ALDS against the Rays Monday night, losing 5-2 and falling behind 2-0 in a playoff series for the second year in a row.

Despite having their ace on the mound and AL Cy Young favorite Cam Schlittler, the Yankees’ defense let them down. The Yankees committed three errors in the first inning alone and four overall, as the Bronx Bombers fell flat to their division rivals.

The Yankees’ high-powered offense, which scored 18 runs in two games during the AL Wild Card Series against the Boston Red Sox, has been held to just two runs so far in this series and is now on the verge of another disappointing playoff exit.

With the Yankees now in danger of seeing another promising season end, who better to dissect a brutal Yankees postseason loss than sports commentator and Yankees superfan Stephen A. Smith?

“This is a disgrace,” Smith said on Tuesday’s First Take show. “You can’t have a team out there looking like the Bad News Bears. It’s bad enough that only Ben Rice is hitting the damn ball after scoring 18 runs against the Red Sox, but you can’t have a professional baseball team in Major League Baseball looking like this. This is disgraceful,” Smith added.

To put it bluntly, the Yankees picked the absolute worst night to have their worst game of the season, coming during what was, without question, a must-win game for them.

If there is any glimmer of hope in this series, it is that the Yankees return home Wednesday night for Game 3, hoping to extend the series to Game 4 and send it back to Tampa Bay for a winner-take-all Game 5.

The Yankees will now flush the first two games of this series and turn to left-hander Max Fried, while the Rays will throw out veteran Nick Martinez.