Thursday, 4 a.m.
Ah, now we know the Tampa Bay Rays' strategy against the Cleveland Guardians in this weekend's playoff series.
They're going to fall on them.
As rapidly as the Rays are going in reverse as the post-season begins, what else can they do? The last-place Boston Red Sox completed a sweep of the Rays Wednesday, winning 6-3 in a game that didn't matter, and a game that the Rays treated as such.
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The Rays are 1-7 in their last eight games, 2-9 in their last 11 games and 4-12 in their last 16 game. In those 16 games, they've totaled 14 runs in the 11 losses and 33 runs in the four wins.
"I told them ‘we can stop sucking now and let's find a way to win some ballgames,’ " said Rays' manager Kevin Cash.
The Rays, aware they couldn't alter the playoff positioning, went through the motions in this loss. For one thing, they started Callup Josh Fleming with his 6.35 ERA. He gave up four runs in in 4 1/3 innings.
Ji-Man Choi, in a slump most of the second half of the season, had threeof the Rays' seven hits.
The Rays will play the Cleveland Guardians Friday at 12:07 p.m. in Cleveland in their best-of-three series.