ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — This may be a good time for the Rays to get out of town.
Temporarily, of course. But a six-day road trip to Chicago to play the White Sox and Cubs could actually do them some good.
What looked like a fluffy little start to the season by sweeping the Orioles turned into something less after the Rays dropped three of four to the Oakland A’s.
Pitching and defense have been trademarks for the Rays (4-3), but they struggled mightily with both in the series, falling 6-3 Thursday in front of 8,287 at Tropicana Field.
It wasn’t hard to pinpoint when the game got away.
There was the Little League home run by Cristian Pache, a single that cleared the bases and allowed him to circle them after an error by Randy Arozarena, staking the A’s to a 3-0 lead.
Throw in some bad base-running, with Manuel Margot getting thrown out at second on a short fly to rightfield in the second inning, and you have some very un-Rays-like baseball.
After Margot’s mistake, A’s lefty Cole Irvin retired 14 batters in a row.
Worse yet, 21 Rays pitchers used in the series issued 19 walks. That’s the most in any four-game span for the Rays since 2019.
The Rays continued their pattern of trailing in every game of the series against the A’s. The problems Thursday arrived in the second inning and were largely self-inflicted.
Starter Josh Fleming was touched for three singles. But the last one ― a line drive through the hole between third and short by Pache ― plated all three runs.
First, shortstop Wander Franco didn’t make much of an effort to knock the ball down. Then Arozarena cut in front of centerfielder Kevin Kiermaier and committed an error, allowing the ball to roll all the way to the wall.
Kiermaier retrieved it before dropping the ball on the warning track on his first attempt to pick it up, allowing Pache to circle the bases.
Fleming didn’t pitch poorly but had little to show for it, allowing four runs, three of them earned, and seven hits in 3 1/3 innings while striking out six and walking one.
The Rays got on the scoreboard in the second when Arozarena led off with a double. Brandon Lowe and Margot singled scoring Arozarena. But Margot was cut down trying to advance to second on a fly ball to A’s right-fielder Billy McKinney. Kiermaier bounced out to end the threat.
The A’s had runners aboard every inning until a 1-2-3 sixth turned in by former USF pitcher Phoenix Sanders, who was making his major-league debut. It was the second of three innings of work by Sanders, who was touched for a run and two singles in the fifth.
Irvin was finally knocked out of the game in the seventh when Harold Ramirez doubled to start the inning and Lowe followed with a towering home run to rightfield, his third of the season.
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