Rays’ offense snuffed by the White Sox, Keuchel

by Gary Shelton on June 16, 2021

in general

Diaz had two hits for the Rays./CHUCK MULLER

Wednesday, 3 a.m.

For a team that has owned the early part of the baseball season, Tuesday qualifies as a bad day all around.

The Tampa Bay Rays, with baseball's best record, were hit with bad news-worse news afternoon. First, they found out that ace pitcher Tyler Glasnow will be out for a significant amount of time with a ulnar collateral ligament and a flexor tendon strain that was injured in Monday night's win.

Hours later, the Rays absorbed a 3-0 loss to the Chicago White Sox, the first time they have been shut out in a month. The Rays had only six hits, two of them in the final inning, in a reminder of how their offense looked before their recent hot streak.






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"(Dallas) Keuchel was tough," said Rays' manager Kevin Cash. "He had good feel for his pitches. Coming in, we knew that he pitches to the edges very well. He’s made a really good career of pitching to the edges and just off. Once he gets you in swing mode, you expand with him a little bit. He did a nice job and kept us quiet."

As good as Keuchel was, there were flaws in the Rays' game. The Rays had a play with a double error in the fourth when Randy Arozarena's throw home slipped past Francisco Mejia, and then another run came home when he was not properly backed up by pitcher Shane McClanahan.

Adam Engle homered for the game's only other run.

 “Randy made a good throw," Cash said. "It’s a tough play for a catcher. Frankie thought it was going to stay up and it went down. There’s a lot of traffic there between the umpire, the runner and the catcher. Shane was back there, but the ball just kind of caromed away."

Said McClanahan: "I didn’t get back there fast enough. I was back there, but I wasn’t  in the right position. It kind of caught me off guard. I should have been there and made the play and I just wasn’t there."

Cash thought McClanahan threw the ball well.

"I thought Shane competed really well," said Cash. "The one thing we’ll focus on is the first-pitch strikes. He put himself behind in some counts we’d like to see him get ahead of. But the stuff looked really good. I don't think they hit the ball all over the park on him. When he’s throwing strikes and he’s got the count in his advantage, he becomes that much tougher."

The Rays were zero-for-seven with runners in scoring position.

“(Keuchel) was good," said Rays' centerfielder Kevin Kiermaier. "He’s very good at moving the ball in many different ways, letting hitters get themselves out. That was kind of the case. We didn’t create a lot of momentum through the whole game. For the most part, bats were quiet tonight."

The Rays will face the White Sox this afternoon at 2:10 p.m. at Guaranteed Rate Field. Ryan Yarbrough will pitch for the Rays against Chicago's Lucas Giolito.





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