Bad pitching again trips up the Rays in Texas

by Gary Shelton on September 13, 2019 · 0 comments

in general

McKay didn't make it through the third./JEFFREY S. KING

Friday, 3 a.m.

For most of the season, you have been able to count on the pitching of the Tampa Bay Rays.

But now, at the most important point in the season, they appear to have run out.

One night after Andrew Kittredge and Jalen Beeks took turns throwing gas on the fire, Brendan McKay and Pete Fairbanks followed suit. They gave up four runs in four innings, and the Rangers went on for a 6-4 victory that knocked the Rays out of the lead for the AL Wild Card lead. The Rays are now a half-game behind Oakland and a half-game in front of Cleveland.

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Cash has seen some ugly pitching the last two nights./JEFFREY S. KING

The Rays have held the AL's best ERA for 160 of 169 days this season including the last 12 days.

It didn't help much Thursday.

Rays' manager Kevin Cash hoped the back-to-back losses wouldn't slow the momentum of a team that had won 10 of 11 before the defeats.

"No, I hope not," Cash said. "We’ve played really good baseball for the last couple of weeks. We had a little hiccup ... speed bump right here. We have a chance to go into Anaheim and fix it. We don’t have time. We’ve got to keep going."

McKay gave up three earned runs while getting only 10 outs. Fairbanks went 2/3 of an inning and gave up two more.

 “I didn’t think [McKay) was very sharp at all today," Cash said.  "For whatever reason, the command wasn’t there. He didn’t have many walks, but he was behind on so many guys. They got into hitters' counts and they capitalized on it. "

 The Rays came back to narrow the deficit to 5-4 when Austin Meadows doubled in two and Tommy Pham drove him home. But Rougned Odor hit his second homer in two days to seal it.

"Everything is magnified right now, so they definitely sting. But we don’t have time right now to worry about it too much," Cash said. "We have to get on a plane and go have a good series against Anaheim."

The Rays' Charlie Morton will go after his 15th win tonight at 10:07 Eastern. Andrew Heaney will start for the Angels.

 

 

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