My Two Cents: 'Imperfect' Rays Get Bats Cranking Just in Time vs. Rangers

Tampa Bay's anemic offense woke up just in time on Wednesday night, and then was just active enough to win again on Thursday. It's a miracle that they've won four games in eight days against the Yankees and Rangers despite hitting .178 and only having 11 extra base hits in 252 at bats. But they'll take it.

ARLINGTON, Texas — Thirty straight Tampa Bay batters went to the plate, and thirty straight made an out. Over two nights, the Rays hitters — and we can safely use that term loosely — had literally no answer for Texas Rangers pitchers.

Through seven-plus innings on Tuesday and the first eight outs on Wednesday, the Rays did literally nothing. It wasn't until No. 9 hitter Vidal Brujan singled in the third inning that the Rays finally had a base runner.

It still would be until the seventh inning that the Rays finally scored a run on a Randy Arozarena homer. It lit a spark, and the Rays wound up winning 4-3 in 11 innings, snapping a two-game losing streak. 

The winning hit was delivered by Ji-Man Choi in the 11th in an adventurous at-bat. He doubled into the right field corner, scoring Harold Ramirez, and Matt Wisler pitched a perfect 1-2-3 11th for the win. 

And then on Thursday, they scored three runs early, which was more than enough thanks to a great start by Corey Kluber and another great bullpen day. They mustered a series split — just like they did over the weekend against the New York Yankees — despite losing the first two games of the series and looking anemically horrible doing it.

“We have scuffled, but like the way the guys stayed at it,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “It’s very easy to get frustrated and kind of get consumed in that frustration and not doing anything.”

The 30 consecutive Rays batters retired were the equivalent of a perfect game, plus an inning. Three Rangers pitchers got out the last 22 Tampa Bay batters Tuesday night, and then got the first eight on Wednesday. The last major league team to retire 30 batters in a row had been Toronto — also against Tampa Bay — in July 2019. Texas hadn’t done that since getting out 33 consecutive Oakland batters in June 2016.

It tied for the third-longest streak of offensive incompetence in Rays history, and the first two actually were part of perfect games. According to Stats LLC, the two longest streaks were 37 against Oakland in 2010 that included a perfect game by Dallas Braden. The second-longest was 34 against the Seattle Mariners in 2012, when Felix Hernandez pitched a perfect game in the middle of that.

During this eight-game stretch against the Yankees and Rangers, the Rays have only scored 21 runs — that's 2.6 per game — and even that is deceiving. They scored two runs in the ninth inning of the last Thursday's loss to the Yankees when they trailed 7-0. The runs meant nothing. They scored three more on Monday against Texas while trailing 9-2. More of nothing.

Two of the runs in Wednesday's win came in extra innings with a runner already placed on second base. Don't get me wrong, those are big runs because they led to a win while the Rays' bullpen was in lockdown mode, but remember that one of those runs scored thanks to a ground ball out and a sacrifice fly. The Rays scored without getting a single hit.

They even beat the Yankees on Saturday thanks to four straight walks and a hit batter (Mike Zunino) to score two runs. Two more scores without the benefit of a base hit.

During this eight-game stretch, the Rays have hit just .178 and 34 of their 45 hits were singles. They only hit three home runs, all solo shots by Ji-Man Choi, Taylor Walls and Randy Arozarena. Production — especially power production — has been virtually non-existent. 

Here's how they did, with hits, at-bats and extra-base hits:

Yankees vs. Rays

• Yankees (Thurs.): 6-33-1 (2B by Margot)
• Yankees (Fri.): 2-28–1 (2B by Margot)
• Yankees (Sat.): 7-30-2 (2B by Mejia, 3B by Franco)
• Yankees (Sun.) 2-26-2 (HR by Choi, HR by Walls)
• YANKEES SERIES: 17-117-6, a .145 batting average, with an extra-base hit average of just 5.1 percent. 

Rays vs. Rangers 

• Rangers (Mon.): 10-35-1 (2B by Paredes, and nine singles)
• Rangers (Tues.): 3-30-0
• Rangers (Wed.): 6-37-2 (2B by Choi, HR by Arozarena)
• Rangers (Thurs.): 9-33-2 (2B by Mejia, 2B by Brujan, and seven singles)
• RANGERS SERIES: 28-135-5, a .207 average, with an extra-base hit average of just 3.7 percent. 

It's helped that the Rays have had a lot of great pitching themselves during this stretch. They are 30-21 right now, tied again for a season-high nine games over .500. 

Only the Yankees (36) and Houston Astros (34) have more wins in the American League. And if the playoffs started tomorrow — news alert, they don't! — they would be in comfortably.

To me, the biggest takeaway from these back-to-back four-game series — one of only two just scheduling quirks all year — was that the Rays survived. As bad as they hit, that could have been a 2-6 week-plus, or even 1-7. It could have buried them, but it didn't. 

And now they come home on Friday night to open a series with the Chicago White Sox, who have dealing with their own struggles, following by a rare three-game visit from the St. Louis Cardinals, who are playing a five-game series in four days at Wrigley Field against the Chicago Cubs.

They key for the Rays is to continue to win series at home and get through this month without shortstop Wander Franco (quadriceps) and Brandon Lowe (back) for a couple more weeks. There's more pitching help coming this month, too, with Shane Baz and Luis Patino seemingly on track for returns. That's going to be huge, too.

In other words, for all the angst directed toward the Rays' offense, this team is still in good shape. The sky is not falling. 

"These guys are going to be fine,'' Cash said. "They appreciate the challenges that you go through in a long season offensively. They stick together and I’m confident that we’ll be fine.'' 

I can't disagree. I really think they'll be fine, too. 

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