The dreaded Devil Rays or The era of Chien-Ming Wang begins again!

If ever there was a game that symbolized the entire Yankee season, it was last night.

Who could have known karma would shift so drastically? The Yankees' evening seemed so promising when they built a quick three-run lead and got some decent innings from Randy Johnson.

But their spirits were plummeting by the time Robinson Cano made an error in the ninth inning to let the Devil Rays score the decisive run off Mariano Rivera.

In an awful 4-3 loss at the Stadium last night that could reverberate through the playoff picture, the wild-card leading Yankees were thrown out on the bases three times, with two of them coming in a nightmarish sixth inning in which they got three hits but could not score. The Rays showed what speed on the bases can really do when pinch-runner Joey Gathright stole second and scored from there when Cano missed Julio Lugo's grounder for the tie-breaking run.

"This is a tough loss, like they all are this time of year, this month," Joe Torre said. "It certainly is disappointing, especially when you have a three-run lead and Randy pitching, but it just didn't happen."

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"He (Cano) has made errors before and he'll make more, it's part of the game," added Derek Jeter. "I've made them and I'll make more. At this point of the season, you try to make as few mistakes as possible, but we had our opportunities to score early and we didn't do it."

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays have won 10 out of 14 meetings with the team that has a payroll nearly 10 times larger than the Flahridians.

Ah, but there is at least one possible bright spot. Chien-Ming Wang, a nation turns its tired eyes to you. Appropriately, Wang had first joined the Yankees earlier this year in response to a disasterous series in Tampa Bay.