Drew Rasmussen carried a no-hitter into the seventh Tuesday night and the Rays finished the job 6-1, clinching the AL East for the fifth time and doing it, characteristically, on the Yankees' own field. New York spent this decade trying to out-earn Tampa Bay and lost anyway. The Rays have run one of the sport's leanest payrolls for years and now they own the division outright, which is the kind of arithmetic that makes a Steinbrenner wince: you can spend more than everybody and still watch the team that spends like a mid-market grocery chain hang a division banner in your building.

Worse for New York, the timing. Aaron Judge is playing through an injury that has the Yankees' October outlook wobbling just as the games start to count double, and a rotation that could not stop Rasmussen for six innings is now the group expected to hold a short-rest lead in the wild card round. Tampa Bay proved a $80 million-ish outfit could out-organize the richest team in the sport for one September night. The Yankees now have three weeks to prove that was the exception, not the preview.