Thursday, 3 a.m.
Often, they're hitless. Sometimes, they're hapless.
Take Wednesday night, when the Rays' stumbled through the empty Tropicana Field -- where they had been very good this season -- en route to a 5--0 loss to the Boston Red Sox.
The loss was the Rays' sixth in their last seven games, a run in which their offense has struggled more nights than not. Wednesday night, the Rays managed only four hits -- two of them by Yandy Diaz.
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The Rays have scored 18 runs over their last seven games after scoring 33 in their first five games. They've hit three home runs in their last seven games after hitting seven in their first four.
”We wish we knew the answer," Rays' manager Kevin Cash said. "We’re going to get going, but we need to turn it around sooner rather than later. I thought we had fairly solid approaches, but the big hit eluded us. We got in hitters’ counts repeatedly but couldn’t get anything going. I’m going to bet on our guys to figure it out real quick.
"It’s been slow going for the bulk of our lineup. Ideally, you have a couple of hot bats and they’re carrying the load. You're not going to get eight guys going at one time very often, but you don’t want to have eight guys cold at one time. It’s been hard for us to get anything going offensively in the last week."
Ryan Yarbrough started well, throwing four shutout innings of his own. But Yarbrough gave up a pair of two-run homers (Michael Chavis and Alex Verdugo) as the Sox pulled away.
The Rays are off today, then play the Yankees four games. Friday night at 6:40 p.m., the Rays will send Blake Snell to the mound against Masahiro Tanaka at Tropicana Field.