The Yankees needed this one. Badly. So when they knocked Tampa Bay starter Drew Rasmussen out of the game in the third inning on Thursday, Aaron Judge made sure everyone knew it.
The Yankees captain was caught on camera in the visiting dugout mimicking a call to the bullpen — a clear jab at the Rays coaching staff as they came to get Rasmussen. Talkin’ Baseball shared the clip on X, and it spread fast. Six runs on seven hits in just 2.1 innings will get you pulled, but Judge’s reaction was the kind of thing you don’t see every day from a guy who usually lets his bat do the talking.
It was a career-worst outing for Rasmussen, who gave up a two-run homer to Ben Rice among other damage. Six different Yankees drove in a run during that third-inning rally, turning a tight game into a 7-3 lead that held up for the series split.
And it mattered. The Yankees came into Thursday five games behind the Rays in the AL East, fighting to stay in the race before the All-Star break. Cutting that deficit to four games changes the math, at least for now. Tampa has been red hot lately, so taking two out of four at their place isn’t nothing.
The next stop is Washington, where the Nationals are one of those teams that’s been quietly better than expected. Their young players are starting to click, which makes them dangerous but also beatable if the Yankees show up with the same energy they had Thursday. A sweep or even a series win could pull New York closer to the top of the division heading into July.
Judge is set to return after the break from whatever’s been bothering him (the team hasn’t been super specific), and the Bombers will need him if they want to make another deep October run. The dugout antics are fun, but the real work starts now.
No word yet on whether the Rays took it personally. Probably safe to assume they did.
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