Well, this one was a dud. Coming off a series sweep of the Cleveland Guardians, the Tampa Bay Rays’ offense remained quiet at the plate and dropped the opener to the Texas Rangers by a score of 4-1.
Griffin Jax got the start for the Rays and was serviceable, allowing just a pair of runs over 5.2 innings of work. He punched out ten, walked three, and allowed five hits. Only one of the two runs he allowed was earned. The effort should have been enough to earn his seventh win of the season. Instead, he left with his eighth loss of the year.
The real story of the night was the Rays offense, or lack thereof. Outside of Aranda and Caminero, who each tallied a pair of hits, the rest of the lineup mustered just one hit. Cal Quantrill held the Rays to just one run an two hits over 5.1 innings of work. He punched out seven and walked just one.
Trailing 2-0, the Rays did threaten in the bottom of the fourth and for a brief moment it looked as if they were poised to take the lead and potentially send Cal Quantrill to the showers early. After a leadoff strikeout by Yandy Diaz, who’s struggles at the plate continued Tuesday night, Jonathan Aranda singled and later advance to third on a double by Caminero. Mullins then reached on catcher’s interference to load the bases for Chandler Simpson. Then, shockingly, Simpson found a way to hit into a groundball double play as he slapped a groundball right back to Quantrill who quickly threw home to start a 1-2-3 double play to end the inning.
The Rays eventually scored in the sixth inning when Caminero tripled home Yandy Diaz on a ball to left that got past a sliding Langford. With a chance to tie the game at two, Mullins promptly struck out swinging.
With the Rays in need of a shutdown inning, Matz took over on the bump and served up a cookie to the nine-hole hitter Austin Wynns, who turned on it and sent it over the wall for his first homer of the season. The solo shot gave the Rangers a 3-1 lead. They would score again in the eighth, but that run was of little consequence as the Rays were done scoring after the sixth inning. The score of 4-1 would hold.
With the Rays loss and the Yankees win over the White Sox, the Rays’ lead in the division is now down to just a game and a half, though they are up two in the loss column. Legumina will open for the Rays on Wednesday night with Seymour working a bulk of the innings. Hopefully the bats wake up as they have now just scored five total runs over their last three games. Luckily, they are 2-1 in that stretch.
