Rays' Regular Season Ends Meekly With Another Loss to Red Sox; Now Real Season Begins
BOSTON, Mass. — It was the same old story for the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday. They lost another game to the Boston Red Sox, time time 6-3 at Fenway Park, and they ended their season on a five-game losing streak — and didn't care one bit.
It was all about making the playoffs for the Rays, who have battled injuries and some tough luck all year. They finished the season 86-76, a mere 10 games over .500 after being 20 over just a month ago. That, too, does not matter because the Rays are the newly created No. 6 seed in the American League playoffs, and everyone is back to square one in the postseason.
They clinched that wild-card spot last Friday, and have been focused on resting people ever since, especially their overused bullpen. That's meant a lot of minor-leagues struggled to get outs in big innings. Hence, the five-game losing streak, with a lot of weirdness thrown in.
"I'm excited to be extending the season a little bit more. It's been a weird Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,'' Rays manager Kevin Cash said. "I just told them we could stop sucking now and we can find a way to start winning some games.''
That challenge starts on Friday in the new wild-card round. The Rays left for Cleveland after the game, and will begin the first game of the best-of-three series on Friday at 12:07 p.m. Ace Shane McClanahan will get the start for Tampa Bay, and he'll face Cleveland's Shane Bieber.
The Guardians, winners of the American League Central, finished the season with a 92-70 record. Picked to finish fourth in their division, they wound up having a great year thanks to a lot of young players stepping up. They won their division by 11 games.
They also played well against the Rays this year, winning four of the six games. They went 2-1 in St. Petersburg in July and won two of three to start this final nine-game road trip for the Rays back on Sept. 27-29.
The road trip ended on Wednesday with minor-leaguer Josh Fleming making the start and pitching 4 2/3 innings while giving up four runs and eight hits. The Red Sox scored three runs in the first inning on a J.D. Martinez home run and never trailed off Fleming, who's been up and down between the Rays and Durham often. He finished the season with a 2-5 record and a 6.43 ERA at the major-league level.
The Rays scored twice in the third inning when two guys who have been struggling lately, outfielder Randy Arozarena and first baseman Ji-Man Choi, got rolling. Arozarena singled and Choi homered to left to make it 3-2.
Boston scored in the fourth, and then rookie Vidal Brujan hit a solo home run in the seventh inning to make it 4-3. The Rays got no closer, though, and Jimmy Yacabonis, another minor-leaguer, gave up two runs in the eighth inning, allowing three walks at two hits.
The highlight of the night for Tampa Bay was seeing Choi finally get hot. He went 3-for-4.
Tom Brew is the publisher of Inside The Rays, and has been with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation network for three years. He is an award-winning writer and editor who has spent most of his four-decade career at the Tampa Bay Times, Indianapolis Star and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He has written four books.