Dickerson gives the fans a thumb's up; he hit another homer./JEFFREY S. KING
TUESDAY, 2 a.m.
Another day, another bullpen.
And, as it turned out, another loss.
The Rays continued to struggle against the relievers of the American League in a 3-2 loss to the Angels Monday night. The Rays scored both of their runs – on three hits – in the first inning Monday; they were held scoreless with four singles in the eight innings afterward.
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Rays' reliever Jumbo Diaz had trouble finding the plate./JEFFREY S. KING
The Rays didn't score off their opponent's bullpen in Sunday's loss to New York or in Saturday's victory.
The Rays took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first on home runs by Corey Dickerson and Logan Morrison. Tim Beckham had a single in the inning.
The Rays have had a lead in 33 of their last 35 games, but they are 17-18 in those games.
Odorizzi pitched well, giving up only two runs in six innings./JEFFREY S. KING
Jake Odorizzi went six innings and allowed only two runs on five hits. Jumbo Diaz took the loss by giving up two walks (one to Jefry Marte, who is hitting .179, and a wild pitch. Ryan Stanek had another wild pitch to allow the winning run to score.
“In a tight ballgame, walks can define some things and they did tonight," said Rays' manager Kevin Cash. "After Odo came in there, we had three pitchers, who I would guess threw more balls than strikes(they did, 30-27). In a 2-2 ballgame, you just aren’t going to find too much success in that situation."
It was the 18th come from behind win by the Angels and the 18th come from ahead loss for the Rays.
“Can’t walk [Marte], can’t walk him," Cash said. "We walk Maybin, I mean, my gosh bad strategy with those guys coming up. They know that. Those games are crucial adding baserunners and getting where we were from a bullpen standpoint coming into tonight. We had to rely on those and it was just tough for them to find the zone.”
Morrison hit a first-inning home run for the Rays./JEFFREY S. KING
Odorizzi felt that he was scuffling much of the night.
“I don’t know," Odorizzi said. "It’s just a weird thing. Some days you have it and some days you don’t and you just have to do the best with what you’ve got. I made big pitches when I needed to, but at the same time there were a lot of bad pitches mixed into there so just kind of scrambling. It was one of those days, but like I said, I was able to keep us right there in the hunt and that’s all I can ask for when I have that stuff.”
The Rays got two runners on in the eighth with a walk and an infield hit, but Logan Morrison struck out (one of 10) to end the inning.
Dickerson's homer was the 13th time a Rays' player has hit one out on his birthday.
“I just try to have a really good approach before I get up there before any game and know what I’m going to do up there," Dickerson said. "Today, I felt like I had a good approach my first at-bat and then kind of went away from it. I felt like we all could have had a little better approaches today and strung together a few more at-bats, we would have had a little more success.”
Alex Cobb pitches for the Rays tonight against the Angels' Matt Shoemaker.
Stanek continues to throw hard out of the bullpen./JEFFREY S. KING
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