The Rays tried their best to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Dodgers and a 1-5 road trip, but came up just a bit short this afternoon losing their fourth of four 1-run games on this west coast trip.
The team came into the contest on a 16-inning scoreless streak having last scored a run in the second inning of the opening game in this series, and for awhile, it looked as if that streak could get much longer. Through four innings, Shohei Ohtani held the offense at bay scattering two hits over four innings while lowering his ERA to 1.00 on the season. Ohtani came into the 5th inning with a two-run lead that could have been much worse after a leadoff walk to Mookie Betts led to the first run after a single by Alex Call. Call then easily stole second off the battery of Shane McClanahan and Hunter Feduccia, who then came around to score on a Alex Freeland single after a walk to Dalton Rushing. Tommy Edman would then walk, but Casey Legumina was able to strand the bases loaded by getting the National League’s RBI leader, Andy Pages, to line out softly to Taylor Walls.
The Rays came into the top of the 5th having not scored in 20 consecutive innings before finally showing some life offensively. Victor Mesa Jr. led the inning off with a walk before Feduccia lined a double deep to left center giving the Rays more runners in scoring position than they had in yesterday’s game. Walls drove in the first run with a sacrifice fly, followed up with consecutive singles by Yandy Diaz and Jonathan Aranda. Cedric Mullins then went on to hit what was scored an infield single which was aided by a slow initial reaction by Ohtani to cover the bag. The single gave Mullins at least one hit against all 30 major league teams over the course of his career. Junior Caminero drove in Diaz on a fielder’s choice that involved two athletic plays on both ends by Tommy Edman and Freeland to prevent things from getting worse. Yet another single in the inning, this time by Richie Palacios, gave the club a two-run lead before the rally was ended by Chandler Simpson bunting into the third out.
A leadoff walk to Freddie Freeman followed by consecutive well-aimed soft contact balls by Betts and Miguel Rojas loaded the bases with nobody out. Garrett Cleavinger came in to relieve Legumina and walked Kyle Tucker in a nine-pitch at bat in which Tucker chased early, but then tightened up his zone and drew the walk after fouling off several close sweepers:
That run would miraculously be the only run of the inning as Cleavinger would go on to induce weak contact flyouts to both Alex Call and Dalton Rushing before overpowering UCF’s Alex Freeland weith three sliders much to the delight of USF alum Shane McClanahan.
The game would remain 4-3 until a one-out double by Andy Pages was followed by a two-run homer to Freddie Freeman on a pitch Feduccia wanted on the other side of the plate and Kelly simply missed his spot in the worst possible place to a lefty, let alone one destined for Cooperstown when it is all said and done:
Kevin Cash would go on to nearly empty the bench in the later innings to counter the lefties coming out of the pen in Jack Dreyer and Alex Vesia, and it nearly worked. Austin Slater drew a leadoff walk from Vesia in the 9th and subsequently swiped second base. Ben Williamson and Walls had two unproductive outs, but an intentional walk to Diaz and yet another walk to Aranda brought Mullins to the plate with the bases loaded. Mullins chased a high fastball in a 1-0 count before spitting on two other fastballs and swingingly helplessly at two sliders that would end the game.
The Rays were held scoreless in 24 of the final 25 innings of this series and have the overnight flight home tonight to reset before taking on the surging Nationals this weekend. Neither starting pitcher had a great line in this game. Ohtani has now allowed three or more earned runs in consecutive starts while McClanahan ended a 10-game streak of walking two or fewer batters in his outings. He had 11 batters in his last 10 starts after the consecutive four-walk outings early in the season. The Dodgers were incredibly disciplined in this outing chasing just 13 of McClanahan’s offering out of the zone and were also aided by several ABS overturns on what would have been 2025 strikeouts.
It appears Jonny DeLuca will be back for this weekend to give the club some much-needed help in the lineup, and perhaps that playing time comes at the expense of Simpson who is now mired in a 3 for 44 slump wrapped around the hand issue that hit him in May. The club needs to find some type of offense spark to snap out of this cold stretch which has seen them lose too much ground in the standings and now have an 11-16 record in Interleague play with six more interleague contests coming up on this 10-game homestand. Hopefully they can find a way to snap out of this June swoon.
