Austin Wells Breaks Up Rasmussen's No-Hit Bid, Then Gets Thrown Out at Third as Yankees Fall 1-0 in ALDS Game 1

Drew Rasmussen was four outs from a postseason no-hitter. Austin Wells broke it up.

The Rays beat the Yankees 1-0 in Game 1 of the American League Division Series at Tropicana Field on Saturday night. The whole game turned on one at-bat in the eighth inning that New York will be replaying for a while.

The Hit

With two outs and Rasmussen having retired 15 straight Yankees, Wells lined a 107.8 mph sinker just inside the right-field line, according to the New York Post. Rasmussen had allowed nothing else all evening besides two walks, to Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the second and Ben Rice in the third.

The double put the tying run in position to come to the plate. Giancarlo Stanton, back from a calf injury and making his first plate appearance since April 24, was lined up to pinch-hit for Ryan McMahon, according to USA Today.

The Mistake

Instead, Wells kept running. Third base coach Luis Rojas put up both arms well before Wells rounded second, according to the Associated Press (carried by WSLS). Wells never picked him up.

Right fielder Victor Mesa Jr. fired the relay in, and Wells was tagged out at third to end the inning. The Associated Press and USA Today both report the relay went from Mesa to shortstop Taylor Walls to third baseman Junior Caminero. The Big Lead described the sequence differently, crediting second baseman Richie Palacios as the middle man on the relay instead of Walls. The box-score mechanics matter less than the outcome: a clean, accurate throw erased the Yankees' best chance to score.

Had Wells reached third safely, it would have been his first MLB triple since April 6, 2025, according to Yahoo Sports. Instead, the inning ended and with it the only real threat the Yankees mounted all night.

Rasmussen's Night

Rasmussen finished with a final line of 8 innings, 1 hit, 2 walks and 10 strikeouts on 101 pitches, 69 of them strikes, according to Sporting News and the Associated Press. His 10 strikeouts tied Tyler Glasnow's franchise record for a postseason game.

The 31-year-old right-hander entered the night with a 1.81 ERA in 10 career starts against the Yankees, according to the Associated Press. He'd flirted with history against New York before, too, carrying a no-hit bid into the seventh inning on September 22, the night Tampa Bay clinched the AL East.

A completed no-hitter would have been the first in postseason history since the Houston Astros' combined effort in the 2022 World Series, per the New York Post. The Big Lead tied the near-miss to Don Larsen's 1956 World Series perfect game as a historical touchstone, though that game was thrown on October 8, several days after this one, not on the same date.

The Only Run

Jonathan Aranda provided the game's lone run, driving a 2-2 changeup from Gerrit Cole 417 feet into the right-center field stands in the third inning, according to Sporting News. Aranda was collecting his first career postseason hit.

Cole, making his first postseason start since Game 5 of the 2024 World Series and his first since undergoing Tommy John surgery in March 2025, allowed just the one run on five hits over five innings with five strikeouts, according to the Associated Press.

Closer Bryan Baker finished it off with a perfect ninth, striking out Stanton, freezing Rice on a called third strike, and getting Cody Bellinger to ground out. It was Tampa Bay's first postseason win since losing the 2020 World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, according to the Associated Press.

What It Cost New York

The one hit was the fewest in Yankees postseason history. The Yankees have now played 447 postseason games, 137 more than any other team, according to MLB.com. New York had scored 18 runs across a two-game Wild Card sweep of the Red Sox before running into Rasmussen. Aaron Judge, the three-time AL MVP, has been out since September 16 with a calf injury and didn't play.

The crowd of 40,542 at Tropicana Field, back in use for its first postseason game since Hurricane Milton tore off the stadium's roof in October 2024, drowned out Yankees fans with cowbells all night, according to the Associated Press. Yankees starter Cam Schlittler had predicted beforehand that the road atmosphere wouldn't feel like a true road game. It did.

Game 2 is scheduled for Monday night at Tropicana Field, with Schlittler starting for New York. Tampa Bay had not announced a starter as of Saturday night, with Griffin Jax and Freddy Peralta mentioned as options by the Associated Press.