My Two Cents: Rays Bats Still Quiet, Time Has Run Out to Fix It as Elimination Nears
CLEVELAND, Ohio — That switch? It still isn't flipped. And it just might be sealed shut for the winter in about 24 hours.
The Tampa Bay Rays, a team that's struggled to hit enough for most the year and has been downright brutal at the plate for two weeks now, couldn't hit a thing again on Friday, and they lost 2-1 in Game 1 of their wild-card series with the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field. They only had three hits all day, and now it's do or die on Saturday in Game 2 with their season on the line.
We wondered if they could simply flip the switch and start hitting again when the postseason rolled around.
The answer? An emphatic no.
This complete offensive meltdown has been mind-numbing. You keep waiting for it to change, but it never does. And now the Rays have run out of chances to toss out the overused phrase of ''we'll get 'em tomorrow.'' Either they get the bats going on Saturday, or winter break can begin far too early. There are no more tomorrows after that.
Credit is certainly due for Cleveland starter Shane Bieber, who was sensational. He pitched 7 2/3 innings and had Rays hitters off balance all night, with a lot of the right-handed hitters chasing a lot of breaking balls out of the zone. Bieber had just faced them two weeks ago, and had given up four runs, and knew he needed a fresh game plan. It worked, to perfection.
"Look, I think we're confident knowing what he's going to do, but when you just execute over and over and over, it's just really impressive the way he attacked us,'' Rays manager Kevin Cash said of Bieber. "He's got three different breaking balls. He's got the big curveball, a hard curveball, the slider, and the cutter that he can go to. He had great feel for all of them. You go back to the last outing that we faced him, it was a very similar outing with the exception of about three consecutive batters. So, he's just a really good pitcher.''
There's certainly plenty of truth to that. He has a 54-26 career record in five major-league seasons, and that's been with several mediocre Cleveland teams. He deserves his props, but the Rays deserve the criticism, too. It's the postseason, You're going to face quality pitchers every day.
You have to find a way to hit. The Rays just aren't doing it.
Tampa Bay center fielder Jose Siri accounted for the only run with a solo homer in the sixth inning to give the Rays a 1-0 lead. Designated hitter Harold Ramirez had a lead-off single in the fifth, and pinch-hitter Isaac Paredes singled in the eighth, but that was it.
The worst part of Friday's showing was the top of the order. The Rays need production out of Yandy Diaz, Wander Franco and Randy Arozarena, their three best hitters, and they got nothing on Friday.
The trio went a combined 0-for-12 with six strikeouts. They were all 0-for-4, with Franco striking out once, Diaz twice and Arozarena three times.
That simply will not work.
''We just have to score more runs,'' said Diaz, who has missed a lot of time the past week with a left shoulder injury, in the understatement of the year. "Sometimes the bats just don't want to hit. But we've just got to keep a positive mind.''
The problem with that is the Rays have been saying that for two weeks now. Up and down the lineup, there have been issues with putting hits together. It's especially worrisome that Arozarena, who has made a name for himself with postseason heroics, struck out three times and looked overmatched each time.
Digest these numbers for a second. In their last dozen games, the Rays are 2-10 and have scored one run or less a whopping eight times.
"(Bieber) had a great outing and none of us could really do anything,'' Arozarena said through translator Manny Navarro. "We've just got to keep doing our work. Tomorrow is a new day and everyone in here wants to keep on playing. We'll regroup and come back and be hot tomorrow. You never know.
"We all want to hit. That was the first time I had three strikeouts in a postseason game. Everything he was doing, I just couldn't connect with them. You have to give them credit.''
Here's the most frustrating part. In six of those recent 10 losses, Rays pitchers held opponents to three runs or less. For this team, that usually equates to victories. Not any more.
Cash has watched this team bounce back many times before. Despite Friday's struggles, he's confident that Saturday will indeed be a new day.
It's needs to be.
"Yeah, I am confident. I am,'' Cash said. "Look, you go through tough pitching performance quite a bit in this league and we saw one today. We'll bounce back. We need to be resilient. I'm very confident in this group that they will respond the way they need to and compete and give us a good opportunity to win.''
Yep, somebody flip that switch, please. Or it's out-go-the-lights for good.
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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.