Rays struggle again in loss to New York Yankees

by Gary Shelton on May 13, 2019 · 0 comments

in general, Tampa Bay Rays

Blake Snell lost his fourth game of the year./STEVEN MUNCIE

Monday, 4 a.m.

Officially, the power outage lasted 43 minutes.

Realistically, it's been going on a lot longer than that.

The Rays mini-slump continued Sunday when the Yankees broke open a game late to won 7-1. The Rays are just 3-4 in their last seven games and 5-6 since the start of May. It was their second series loss of the season.

The Rays are a half-game ahead of the Yankees in the AL East, and today could end their streak of 43 straight days alone in first place, pending the result of the Orioles/Yankees game. The six-run defeat was their 3rd-largest of the season.

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Yandy Diaz makes a diving catch for the out./STEVEN MUNCIE

The Rays were held to two runs or fewer for the seventh time in their last 15 games and 3 runs or fewer for the ninth time over that stretch. Nine of their 11 runs this series came via the homer (four solo, one 2-run, one 3-run).

Rays' manager Kevin Cash said he wasn't surprised to see the Yankees and Red Sox get hot.

Austin Meadows homered for the Rays' only run./STEVEN MUNCIE

“No, not at all," Cash said. "It’s funny that we were talking about three weeks when certain teams were out of it. No, there’s no surprise whatsover. They are good teams with a lot of good players and good players are going to show up more times than not.”

Blake Snell went 5 2/3 innings  and allowed just four hits in taking the loss, which lowered his record to 3-4 on the season.Three of those hits came in a row by the Yankees in their two-run sixth..

"I have to be better," Snell said. "I let some things get away from me to where I didn’t execute pitches as well as I should have. With that being said, it was frustrating. Overall, a frustrating outing. I felt really good, but I need to be better.”

Ji-Man Choi had two hits./STEVEN MUNCIE

The Rays only run came on a home run by Austin Meadows. After the power outage, the Yankees scored four times to break open the game.

“It’s early, man," Meadows said. "Obviously this was a tough loss, tough series. This one and the Red Sox back a little while ago. For us, we know we have all the talent in the room and we know we can compete with anybody. We had really close games. This one got away from us at the end there. Also with the Red Sox, we had some really close games with those guys as well. We’re only going to bounce back. We’re looking forward to getting up to New York here soon. Definitely going to be a competition throughout the whole year.”

Kevin Keirmaier struck out to end the game./STEVEN MUNCIE

Said Kevin Kiermaier: “We need to play better, plain and simple. We didn’t have our best weekend. Yesterday was a very good, clean game. We came up Friday a little short and the game [today] got a little out of hand there towards the end. That’s baseball. We are playing a really good team over there. They collectively had better at-bats throughout the day. You have to tip your hat to Tanaka. He’s nasty. He’s a wizard up there. He has you off balance all the time. He had his split and slider working today. He’s so deceptive. We weren’t able to find many barrels off him."

The Rays are off today, then travel to Miami for two games against the Marlins. Charlie Morton (3-0) pitches against Caleb Smith (3-0). The game begins at 7:10 p.m.

Ryne Stanek gave up a run in one inning./STEVEN MUNCIE

 

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