Rays pitchers play escape artist: Rays 4, Nationals 1

It wasn’t a pretty game. It wasn’t an efficient game.

The Rays starter couldn’t get past the fourth. The Rays closer allowed two men to get into scoring position.

If my math is correct, Rays pitchers threw 174 pitches.

If my eyes don’t deceive me, Rays hitters struck out 12 times.

In fact, this is exactly the kind of “no one is at his best but we won anyway” game that this season has lacked; if the Rays had eked out a few more ugly wins this season would look a lot different.

The Rays pulled out to an early lead. With two outs in the first inning, Yandy Diaz walked and Brandon Lowe, for whom the Washington area is close to home, belted a home run:

But Rays starter Adrian Houser struggled to hold that lead. The Nationals scored on a walk, a single, and a sac fly to make the score 2-1.

As Houser continued to struggle, it seemed unlikely that the lead would stand. Two Nationals hits in the second. A double, a walk and a balk in the third. Loading the bases on two singles and a walk in the fourth.

No wonder Kevin Cash went quickly to his (presumably rested) bullpen. And that bullpen kept the Nats from getting on the board, although Washington had at least one runner on base in every inning. In fact, they had 12 hits and they walked four times, it seems almost mathematically impossible to have that many base runners and only come away with a single run. It would have been a miserable night to be a Nats fan.

One of the reasons the Nats failed to score again was that Chandler Simpson came up with two outstanding defensive plays. Since his defense is much maligned by both the stats “nerds” and the eye test “experts” it’s kind of nice to see him be a difference maker with his glove.

In the second inning, he threw Daylen Lile out at third when he had tried to advance on a single to left field. Given how shaky Houser was, exchanging a runner on third for an out was huge.

Then, in the bottom of the third, with runners on second and third base, Chandler caught this sinking line drive for the third out:

For the Rays, after Lowe’s home run, not much happened (other than a lot of whiffs). It looked like those two runs might have to suffice, but in the fifth inning Everson Pereira provided an insurance run, his first major league blast.

A Chandler Simpson RBI single provided yet more insurance in the top of the ninth, which made it that much less stressful when Pete Fairbanks gave up two, two-out hits before logging a final strikeout to end the game.

Just one final thought, why did the Nationals, a team that had the first and I believe the best City Connect jerseys in the league, issue a second round of City Connects that are entirely forgettable?

The old ones: great colors using a palate you seldom see in professional sports; iconic cherry blossoms evoking the best of Washington in springtime. The new ones: a shade of blue that is supposed to resemble denim (but doesn’t). I get the street grid idea, but how is that distinctive? Every city has a grid!

But I guess this is fitting for a team that had a brilliant run to the World Series in 2019 and has done nothing of note ever since.