Das Team » Rookie Jake Bauers and the Tampa Bay Rays made

An injury to Gary Sanchez turned the trip into an even bigger loss.

Bauers led off the 12th inning with a home run and Tampa Bay completed a three-game sweep of the Yankees with a 7-6 victory Sunday.

”It’s a crazy feeling Maxx Crosby Jersey ,” Bauers said.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Sanchez hurt his right groin/hip abductor trying to beat out a double-play grounder in the 10th and ”it’s probably going to be a DL situation.”

”What can I say?” Sanchez said through a translator. ”That’s the way baseball is sometimes. Now I’m just hoping it’s not a long time.”

Sanchez will undergo an MRI exam Monday.

Giancarlo Stanton doubled twice and homered while going 5 for 5 for New York. The Yankees had been the only team in the majors that hadn’t lost three in a row this year – this was the latest into any season they had gone without losing three straight since August 1954.

”Just a frustration weekend, but you just turn the page from it,” Boone said.

Bauers, who tripled earlier, homered on the first pitch from Chasen Shreve (2-2). Five previous New York relievers held Tampa Bay hitless for eight innings.

Brett Gardner opened the 12th with a bunt single that saw Rays reliever Jonny Venters strain his right hamstring and depart the game.

Venters hadn’t pitched in the majors since the 2012 NL wild-card game with Atlanta until joining Tampa Bay this season. The lefty had three Tommy John surgeries (2005, 2013, 2014) and another other major procedure in 2016.

Venters will be going on the disabled list

”Hopefully, it’s a mild strain,” Venters said. ”It’s disappointing, but injuries are part of the game.”

Ryan Yarbrough (7-3) replaced Venters and worked out of a first-and-third jam by getting a two-out grounder from Austin Romine Foster Moreau Jersey , who replaced Sanchez.

Stanton hit a solo homer in the eighth off Vidal Nuno that made it 6-all. He reached on an infield single in the 10th before Sanchez hurt himself.

Nuno allowed one run over four innings.

Yankees pinch hitter Clint Frazier lofted a towering fly in the ninth that struck a speaker hanging from an overhead catwalk and shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria, as allowed by the ground rules at Tropicana Field, caught the carom for an out in shallow left.

Hechavarria missed time earlier this season with bruise near his eye when a ball took a strange bounce on the turf after striking a catwalk.

”As the play was happening, once it hit up there, I thought about that last play,” Hechavarria said through a translator. ”That’s not going to happen again.”

Tampa Bay tied it in the second on Hechavarria’s solo homer, and went up 6-3 when Carlos Gomez had an RBI single and Jesus Sucre drove in two with a double off Domingo German during the third.

”It always nice to beat the Yankees,” Hechavarria said. ”And it’s good that they’re leaving here a little frustrated about getting swept by us.”

It’s the second time – also the Chicago Cubs in June 2008 – that Tampa Bay has a swept a series of three or more games against a team that entered a series with the best record in the majors.

Didi Gregorius and Stanton had consecutive run-scoring doubles in the fifth to make it 6-5. Miguel Andujar put the Yankees ahead 3-2 with a three-run homer in the second.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Yankees: RHP Masahiro Tanaka, on the 10-day disabled list since June 9 with strained left and right hamstrings, threw 26 pitches in his first bullpen session. He will get on the mound again Tuesday.

Rays: Gomez started after missing Saturday’s game with a sore left wrist. He was hit by a pitch from CC Sabathia on Friday.

FIRST START

Yankees RHP Luis Cessa (0-0) will make his first start this season Wednesday night at Philadelphia. The move allows Sabathia to get a couple extra days of rest and start the opener Friday night of a three-game series with Boston at Yankee Stadium.

UP NEXT

Yankees: RHP Jonathan Loaisiga (1-0) makes his third major league start Monday night against Philadelphia RHP Vince Velasquez (5-7).

Rays: LHP Blake Snell (9-4) Joey Bosa Jersey , with an extra day of rest, faces Washington LHP Gio Gonzalez (6-4) on Monday night.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays might be the surprise hottest team in baseball, and if anything can slow them down, it might be Washington Nationals starter Max Scherzer, who takes the mound against them Tuesday.

The Rays have been dominant of late, with seven wins holding opponents to one or zero runs in the last 13 games, and four wins in a row after a 11-0 drubbing of the Nationals on Monday. Tampa Bay didn’t hold an opponent under two runs once in its first 19 games and just once in its first 38, but their patchwork pitching has been a major impetus to their recent surge.

Then there’s Scherzer, who is 10-3 with a 2.09 ERA Tony Pollard Jersey , this despite a near-mortal stretch where he has no wins in his last three outings, having allowed all of six earned runs in 20 innings during that stretch. The Rays remember him well from June 5, when he struck out 13 batters — matching his second-highest total of 2018 — while allowing two earned runs in eight innings. He’s had 16 starts this season, and he’s only allowed more than two runs once, and only four in that blemish.

For his career against the Rays, he’s 5-2 with a 2.82 ERA, and even that is notable in that he went 0-2 as a rookie in 2010 and hasn’t lost since. For the season, just slightly less than half his outs have come by strikeout, with 161 strikeouts in 107 2/3 innings.

The Rays will counter with Nathan Eovaldi (1-3, 4.91 ERA) Noah Fant Jersey , who has made five starts since returning from Tommy John surgery, with one dominant debut and then four starts since where he’s averaged four earned runs in less than six innings. More of a concern is the home runs he’s allowed — eight in 29 1/3 innings, including four in his last start, a 5-1 loss to Houston.

He’s faced the Nationals once this year, giving up four runs on four hits in five innings in the game against Scherzer on June 5. Eovaldi got his start in the National League, so he’s had 10 starts against Washington, going 2-5 with a 5.30 ERA.

An 11-run outburst like Monday’s win shows the Rays might be finding their bats as well, with Kevin Kiermaier, struggling at the plate since returning from the disabled list, getting a key grand slam as part of a six-run second inning.

“Baseball is hard. It’s really hard Dalton Risner Jersey ,” Kiermaier said of his slow start. “Adjusting back to big-league pitching is not an easy thing. Trying to get acclimated up there at the plate again. I felt really good and it was a good momentum swing for our team to put us up early.”

The Nationals will at least be better rested on Tuesday — after a long rain delay that pushed back their Sunday night game against Philadelphia, they didn’t get to their hotel in St. Petersburg until 4:40 a.m. on game day.

“We’re a little tired, but we had all day to rest,” Nationals manager Davey Martinez said.