ST. PETERSBURG -- Jake Bauers’ initial read was that the Yankees’ defensive positioning had worked perfectly, their spray charts having placed him to secure the seventh-inning drive rapidly approaching in left field. But Wander Franco’s liner kept carrying; there was one step back, then two, then a last-ditch lunging attempt.

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The ball went uncaught, ticking off Bauers’ glove and rolling toward the wall as Yandy Díaz charged around the basepaths with the go-ahead run. It was an appropriately wild play to cap a heated first meeting of the season between two American League East rivals, with the Yankees falling to the Rays, 5-4, on Friday evening at Tropicana Field.

“That ball’s got to be caught,” Bauers said. “I got a bad read, a bad jump on it. I couldn’t recover. We’re not in that situation if I make that play. No excuses.”

Díaz ran past catcher Jose Trevino, opting not to slide, and was initially called out by home plate umpire Dan Merzel. The Yankees celebrated in the visiting dugout, but only briefly -- the Rays intended to challenge, and the visitors’ feeds had bad news for manager Aaron Boone, who later would remark, “We thought he was safe.”

The Yankees had an opportunity to punch back in the eighth. DJ LeMahieu reached on an infield hit and Kyle Higashioka smacked a pinch-hit double, setting up runners at second and third with one out for Harrison Bader, who tied the game in the sixth with a three-run homer. But Colin Poche got Bader to pop out and struck out pinch-hitter Isiah Kiner-Falefa; nothing doing.

With the loss, the Yankees (17-16) are 10 games back in the AL East, the earliest they’ve faced a double-digit divisional deficit since 1984, when they were 10 games behind the Tigers just 19 games into the season. A recitation of that fact irked Boone during a testy postgame exchange with reporters.

“We’ve got to go out and play. I don’t care what the number is,” Boone said. “If we do, we’ll put ourselves in a good position. You can ask me tomorrow how important it is. It’s important. You can ask me if it’s double digits. I get it. We’ve got to get right and we’ve got to play well, or none of it matters. It’s a long … season. We’re grinding right now. It’s tough for us right now. We’ve got to find a way, and the guys are competing their [tails] off.”

Boone, and the Yankees, can take solace in the fact that this is not 1984. No Wild Cards existed then, and under the current postseason format, the Yanks sit just two games out of a playoff spot. Yet there is no masking that a combination of injuries and underachievement has placed them further behind at this juncture than many would have expected.

“It’s not concerning at all; I don’t even look at that [standings] stuff,” Bader said. “Every single day, you come in and you’ve got something to do. You’ve got a task at hand. Tomorrow is no different than today in the way we approach everything. It’s super early, and we’re still finding our groove.”

This being a series between the Rays and Yankees -- two teams that have exchanged bad blood over the past few seasons -- jawing across the diamond no longer generates surprise.

This time, it came in response to Randy Arozarena’s first-inning homer off rookie starter Jhony Brito; television cameras caught Arozarena celebrating jubilantly in the dugout, referencing the new “Randy Land” seats in Tropicana Field’s Section 114, where an Arozarena home run clinches a complimentary beer or soda for patrons.

“I know the fans are pretty excited, because they're able to drink for free,” Arozarena said through an interpreter.

Indeed, the fans cashed drinks on the house, but it appeared to come at a price for Arozarena. Brito hit him in the third inning, drawing boos, and the umpires warned both benches when Albert Abreu clipped a clearly displeased Arozarena with a sinker in the fifth.

“Look, I understand they’re upset,” Boone said. “Your guy gets hit twice, I’d be upset. At the same time, we’re just trying to get in on him there a little bit. Two of them got away, obviously, but there was no intention.”

The umpires’ decision to warn both benches prompted the ejection of Rays manager Kevin Cash, who protested his club being disciplined for having a star player hit twice. Even so, the Rays ultimately agreed that the plunkings were probably unintentional; Abreu said as much to Arozarena on the field, attempting to defuse the situation as play continued.

“Everybody knows how I pitch and what’s my go-to pitch,” Abreu said. “I’m trying to execute a good sinker there, inside and a little off the plate. … He said a couple of things that were kind of personal. I just told him that I was executing a pitch there. He understood that.”