Rays 3, Angels 4: Rays beat themselves, drop fifth straight
Rays unable to get the big hit as they drop 5th straight.
The Tampa Bay Rays played host to Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels Tuesday evening in Tampa as they began a 13-game homestand. Despite their best efforts to overcome Youtuber Zack Hample and the Halos, the Rays fell in the series opener by a score of 4-3.
While some on social media might place the blame solely at the feet of Hample, who caught a two-run wall-scraping homer just over the outstretched glove of left fielder Christopher Morel, the Rays simply couldn’t get out of their own way on Tuesday night and as a result dropped their fifth straight and dropped to 4-6 to start the year.
Shane Baz made his second start of the year for the Rays opposite veteran Kyle Hendricks. The two battled it out and the only runs either surrendered came on the aforementioned two-run homer in the second inning off the bat of Kyren Paris.
The two-run bomb was Paris’ third of the year and opened the scoring. The Angels would maintain that two run lead until the bottom of the seventh inning when the Rays bats finally came alive.
Following seven solid frames from Baz, the Rays offense provided some much needed run support and got Baz off the hook for the loss. Facing the flame-throwing Ben Joyce, Junior Caminero got the Rays on the board with an opposite field solo-shot, his first of the year. With the lead cut in half, Aranda followed with a single and Morel promptly doubled him home. Misner followed with a run-scoring triple and in the span of just four batters, the Rays had taken their first lead of the night 3-2.
With Misner on third with nobody out, Jansen grounded sharply to short and Mangum grounded into a fielder’s choice as the Angels secured the out at home with Misner running on contact. With that, the threat was dead and the Rays would take a 3-2 lead into the eighth.
Uceta was unable to provide a shut-down inning and the Angels tied the game at 3-3 on a Jorge Soler double down the left field line. Scoring on the double was Rengifo who walked to start the inning.
Caballero, hitting for Caminero (defensive substitution the inning prior), tripled to start the bottom of the eighth. Then, Mead, pinch hitting for Aranda, struck out. Morel followed with a strikeout of his own and an ejection to go with it following a questionable strike call earlier in the at-bat. Jansen gave a ball a ride and almost opened up the game for the Rays, but it was caught at the track and the Rays were unable to cash in on the leadoff triple.
Fairbanks came on for the 9th and after striking out Adell, surrendered a single to O’Hoppe. Ward then hit a ground ball to third that should have ended the inning, but Coco Montes, the recently recalled utility man, was unable to gather the grounder cleanly and had to settle for just one out. The very next hitter, Luis Rengifo, lofted a ball into shallow center and gave the Angels a 4-3 lead.
Down to their final three outs, Mangum reached on a leadoff single that was lined off the glove of Rengifo at third. He then stole second and Walls bunted him over to third. Walls, who reached on the bunt, stole second and the Rays were in business. Nobody out with the tying run at third and the winning run just 180 feet away. Nonetheless, the Rays again were unable to cash in. Diaz grounded softly to third and Mangum surprisingly took off for home. He was retired with ease and the threat was diminished. With Walls at third and Diaz not at first, Brandon Lowe struck out swinging at a chin-high fastball and Caballero struck out on swinging on a letters-high fastball to end the game.
The Rays finished 2-13 with RISP and at at least one point in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings had a runner on third base with no outs. Only once did any of those runners score; Morel in the 7th, but Misner followed and was on third with no outs following a triple that scored Morel and did not score. That is the story of the game.
Baz finished with seven innings of three hit baseball, one of those just happened to leave the yard. He walked four and struck out six. His ERA moves to 1.38 through two starts. In 13 innings of work to start the year he has 16 punch outs.
The Rays will send Ryan Pepiot to the mound tomorrow evening in hopes of ending the skid.