Wednesday, September 11. Game 147. Good hitting, bad pitching, horrible base running, Rays lose 10-9

Rays 9, Rangers 10

Record:  87-60

Attendance:  19,746.  Global Life Park

As well as the Rays have been playing for the last two weeks, perhaps it was inevitable they should have a letdown.  They did on Wednesday night in a game that could well have been one of their greatest successes.

In the first inning, which took almost a full hour to play, the Rays jumped out to a 2-0 lead on a Tommy Pham double and a Matt Duffy single.  But in the bottom of the first, the Rangers scored seven times to take a 7-2 lead, which dissolved when the Rays scored five times in the top of the second to tie the game at seven.  That's 14 runs in an inning and a half.

The Rays took a one-run lead on a Duffy sac fly in the fourth, which is how it remained until the bottom of the seventh.when Rougned Odor jerked a Nick Anderson fastball down the right field line for a three-run homer.  Rangers up, 10-8.  In the ninth, Ji-Man Choi hit his second home run of the night, a solo shot that tightened the game up, but that is how it ended with the Rangers eking out a one-run win over the red-hot Rays.

The Rays used eight pitchers on the night with Andrew Kittredge opening and giving up three runs without registering an out before being replaced by Jalen Beeks, who gave up four more runs and getting two outs before he was replaced by Austin Pruitt, who got them out of the first and settled things down with three more solid innings.  Colin Poche started the seventh and had two men on when he was replaced by Anderson, who then threw the home run ball to Odor.  Officially the loss went to Poche.

At various times during the season, Rays base running has been so bad that even Kevin Cash once called it "atrocious."  Wednesday night it was the most atrocious it has ever been.  Duffy was on third with two outs when he was caught napping.  Guillermo Heredia was picked off first.  Choi was caught off second by the catcher.  And most galling of all, Johnny Davis, a 29-year-old base-stealing phenom from the Mexican League in his very first Rays game, was put in as a pinch runner--and was picked off.  Ironic?  Yes.  Pathetic?  Most definitely.

Almost every break has gone the Rays way over the last two weeks, but Wednesday night balanced the scales--and what could have been an inspiring win turned into a deflating and disheartening loss that will be hard to spring back from.

The rubber game of the series is Thursday night with Brandon McKay still working his way back into the rotation after late season arm fatigue and a stint at Durham working against lefty Kolby Allard, who came over to the Rangers from Atlanta at the trade deadline and has gone 3-0 with an ERA of 1.47 over his last three games.  The Rays will have to put Wednesday's tough loss behind them very quickly.