Saturday, June 1. Game 56: Wake up!

Rays 2,  Twins 6

Record:  35-21

Attendance:14,381

The Rays drifted through a lazy air-conditioned afternoon at Tropicana Field, dropping a 6-2 decision to the more aggressive Twins, who routinely took advantage of every opportunity the laid back Rays gave them.  There was nothing spectacular about the Twins work ethic, but they kept at their jobs until they had scored two in the third, and one each in the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th innings.  The Rays' Travis d'Arnaud singled in a run in the second but then the bats went silent for the next five innings, until rookie Christian Arroyo (who came to the Rays from the San Francisco Giants in the Evan Longoria trade in December 2017 and has languished at triple A Durham most of the time since then) homered to center in the eighth.  And that was it.

Before we conclude that Arroyo was a bright spot with his homer, he also allowed the leadoff hitter to reach and later score with his throwing error in the seventh, and he grounded weakly to second to make the third out with the bases loaded in the second inning.  He may have a future as a major leaguer, but not many people think he's arrived quite yet.

Yonny Chirinos was the starter, not the bulkman, but he left after five and a third having given up nine hits, one walk, and four runs.  He took the loss, which brought his record to 6-2.  Hunter Wood came on to surrender two more runs before the clean mop up work by Oliver Drake and Jose Alvarado, who gave up a hit and struck out two in a meaningless outing.  Lefty Adam Kolarek was optioned before the game to Durham to work out a few recent kinks in his effectiveness.  The bullpen is key to any hope the Rays may have for the post-season, but it continues to be a work in progress.

The lackluster offensive performance today may reasonably be attributed to the absence in the lineup of three top hitters, Avisail Garcia, Tommy Pham (both day-to-day) and Yandy Diaz (who may be activated from the IL for today's game).  Maybe with them in the lineup there would not have been 18 men left on base, and maybe their BA with runners in scoring position would not have been an embarrassing .125 (1 for 8).

Power hitting Nate Lowe was called up from Durham to play first base today.  Struggling Daniel Robertson was benched.  Ji-Man Choi continues to underperform as a regular in the lineup.  And if he continues to improve,  Willy Adames may one day soon become an average major league shortstop.

Citing the terrible recent attendance figures at Tropicana Field, John Romano of the Tampa Bay Times, commented in the paper of June 2.  "Crowds of 6,000 or less for a team on pace to win 101 games are not just alarming they are unprecedented. . . . It's getting late in the game to save major league baseball in Tampa Bay."