KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The good news is the bottom line: The Rays resumed play after their rain-extended All-Star break with a doubleheader sweep of the Royals, winning the opener, 6-1, and the nightcap, 4-2.
That improved the Rays’ American League-leading record to 60-35 and extended their lead in the East division over Baltimore.
But if you were looking for some indications that the five-day break recharged their offense, it was not an encouraging day, especially against inexperienced and unproven pitchers.
In the opener, the Rays got three runs on solo homers and three others after a Royals reliever walked the bases loaded in the eighth, while striking out 13 times.
In the nightcap, they converted 11 hits and three walks into only four runs, primarily by going 2 for 11 with runners in scoring position and striking out eight more times. Most glaring was their inability to get a runner home from third with no outs in the seventh.
The Rays took the lead in Game 2 in the third inning thanks to two of their All-Stars. Wander Franco doubled with one out and Randy Arozarena singled with two.
Cooper Criswell, who had a solid outing overall following opener Shawn Armstrong, couldn’t hold it. He allowed a run in the third when Nick Pratto greeted him with a double, moved up on a single and scored on a sac fly. And another in the fifth when Drew Waters singled, went to third on another hit and scored on an infield out.
The Rays came back to tie it in the seventh, but wasted a chance for more. After Manuel Margot singled, Josh Lowe was the pinch hitter for Christian Bethancourt and delivered a triple. Manager Kevin Cash next had Brandon Lowe hit for Taylor Walls, but that didn’t work as well, as he grounded out. The next two Rays also failed to get the run home, as Jose Siri struck out and Franco flied out.
But the Rays did go ahead in the eighth. Harold Ramirez led off with a single and aggressively hustled to second on Arozarena’s fly out to center. That mattered as he then scored on a two-out single to right by Luke Raley.
Though the Rays scored six runs in the opener, it wasn’t really an encouraging performance.
Three of the runs came on solo homers — two by Jose Siri, for a team-leading 18, and one by Francisco Mejia.
And the other three came after Royals reliever Collin Snider walked the first three batters of the eighth inning (on 12 pitches), on a single by Luke Raley and a sac fly by Josh Lowe.
The Rays struck out 13 times, including 11 over six innings — with a stretch of five straight in the fourth and fifth innings — against Alec Marsh, the 25-year-old in his third big-league game.
“Tip your cap to Marsh; he did a good job,” Cash said. “But I’d like to think that we can do a little bit better job of making some adjustments after that first time through the lineup.”
Siri’s power has been an impressive surprise — he has only hit more than 18 in two of his nine previous pro seasons at any level (and only 11 total in the majors before this year).
“He certainly has made progress and I think that athletically, it’s all there,” Cash said. “So I’m glad to see the consistency showing up.”
Siri is too, saying “sometimes” he is trying to go deep, and other times it just happens.
“I feel good to be able to hit two of them,” Siri said, via team interpreter Manny Navarro. “I know I’ve been striking out quite a bit, but everyone already knows that. It felt good to be able to connect on those two.”
What made the offensive performance stand up was a solid, but not overly strong, outing by starter Tyler Glasnow, who knew he didn’t have his best stuff, or top-shelf fastball, but made it work.
“I thought he competed really, really well,” Cash said. “That’s not the best — he hasn’t thrown probably in eight days or whatever it was — maybe not the sharpest that he wanted to be. But he got his breaking ball going early, which was encouraging.”
Glasnow, who had no issues with the hands and legs cramping that forced him out of his previous start, said he had to figure something out.
“It was a little weird to start; I kind of felt off,” he said. “Then I think as the innings went on, I kind of got back into kind of like a rhythm. But I definitely think I had to battle (Saturday), and it ended up being a good game.”
Glasnow’s performance hinged on a three-batter sequence in the fifth inning.
With the Rays leading 2-0, he gave up a two-out homer to Bobby Witt Jr. The next batter, veteran Salvador Perez, drove a ball that hit high off the center-field wall but was touched by a fan, so a double was awarded. Glasnow, who initially thought it was a game-tying homer, then got his biggest out of the night, getting Kyle Isbell to swing at a two-strike curveball that, by design, bounced in front of the plate and was blocked by Mejia, who did yeoman’s work.
“I very rarely try to leave it in the zone,” he said. “I’m trying to just make it look like a heater and not really care where it ends up.”
