Rays lose, but concern over Glasnow is bigger

by Gary Shelton on May 11, 2019 · 0 comments

in general, Tampa Bay Rays

Glasnow left the game with tightness in his arm./CHUCK MULLER

Saturday, 3 a.m.

The division lead is in doubt.

The bats have disappeared.

The team cannot win a one-run game.

But forget all of that for a moment. For the time being, the Rays' immediate future is somewhere inside of Tyler Glasnow's left arm.

Glasnow left the game abruptly Friday night after 5 1/3 innings after feeling arm tightness. He would lose to the Yankees, 4-3, for his first loss of the season. But for now, it is Glasnow's future that concerns the Rays.

The Rays' lead in the AL East has dwindled to one-half game, largely because the Rays are 1-7 in one-run games. In the last two games, the Rays have struck out 34 times in 22 innings and are batting .083 with 12 strikeouts with runners in scoring position.

Glasnow, Rays waiting for test results./CHUCK MULLER

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Meadows celebrates his home run. /CHUCK MULLER

Glasnow entered Friday's game with a 6-0 record and league-leading 1.47 era. It was the starting threesome of Blake Snell, Charlie Morton and Glasnow that gave fans a reason to think the Rays might be in this race for a while yet.

Adames reacts after flying out in the 9th./CHUCK MULLER

"He went to stretch his forearm, which is not an ideal thing," manager Kevin Cash said. "I’m glad we caught it. We’ll wait and see what people a lot smarter than us tell us."

Glasnow, after the game, said he did not feel discomfort.

I feel fine, honestly," Glasnow said. "I don’t really feel it. I threw like six pitches to end the inning and all of them I felt a little tightness in there. I thought I would shut it down with a precautionary reason.

“I think as a pitcher you always have certain things that go on. There are always small pains and stuff. I don’t really know what’s going on right now, but I felt good and I’m going to be optimistic. It wasn’t a pop or anything crazy. I felt tightness for a couple of pitches and I felt like I should come out of the game

Choi gave the Rays a lead with his homer./CHUCK MULLER

because it felt pretty tight. I’ll figure it out later.”

The Rays fell behind 2-0 in the first inning. They later rallied for 3-2 lead, but Gio Urshela had a two-run single in the sixth.

The Rays loaded the bases with nobody out in the seventh, but Tommy Pham struck out on a full count and Ji-Man Choi hit into a double play.

"There were a couple of missed opportunities in there," Cash said. "Credit (Adam) Ottavino for making some pitches. He kind of put himself in a bind by not finding the strike zone and we had good at-bats and then he really battled with Tommy and got a big strikeout and the ground ball from Ji-Man.  That was frustrating because we felt like we had him on the ropes there a little bit. Bases-loaded and no outs. We couldn’t come up with the big separator there.”

For the Rays, Austin Meadows returned to the lineup and had a double and a home run. Choi, also, homered for the Rays.

The Rays play against the Yankees again tonight at 6:10 p.m. Ryan Stanek will open for Tampa Bay. He'll face C.C. Sabathia.

Rays’ manager Kevin Cash argues a call./CHUCK MULLER

 

 

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