Blue Jays Add to Rays' Misery With 9-2 Rout For 4th-Straight Loss
TORONTO — When the Tampa Bay Rays were grinding through two straight weeks of record-setting nail-biters, manager Kevin Cash said he wouldn't mind seeing that streak come to an end.
But this wasn't what he had in mind.
The Rays got crushed by the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday, falling 9-2 in a rare rout. The game got away from them in the third inning, when Toronto scored five runs off of starter Corey Kluber thanks to five doubles and a walk in a seven-batter stretch.
It was the fourth straight loss for Tampa Bay — and second in a row to Toronto — and the Rays are now 40-36 on the season. They haven't been four games over .500 since May 3 and are just 6-13 in their last 19 games.
The Rays lost the series opener 4-1 on Thursday, ending a team-record stretch of 14 games that were decided by two runs or less. The previous record had been nine in 2007, and it was the seventh-longest stretch in the majors since records were kept in 1901, according to Baseball Reference.
The third inning all got pinned on Kluber, but center fielder Kevin Kiermaier, playing his first game in nearly two weeks because of a hip injury, played a role, too. One double actually bounced off his glove, a catch he almost always makes.
“I had to go a long way to catch that and as I kept going back more and more, I decided to do the basket catch like I’ve done before,'' Kiermaier said to the media afterward. "I thought the ball went in my glove, but it didn’t. That was a game-changing play though, and I knew it right then and there. You win as a team, you lose as a team, but this one, my play changed the momentum of the game.
"Any time you give the opposition extra chances, you usually pay for it, and that’s on me. I make that play all the time, but I didn’t there and I’m very disappointed in myself. I make that catch and it completely changes everything. That one's on me.’’
"That was a game-changing play, and I knew it right then and there."@RaysBaseball center fielder Kevin Kiermaier says his missed catch changed the complexion of the game after Friday's loss to the Blue Jays. #RaysUp pic.twitter.com/oP0OhzORdf
— Bally Sports Sun: Rays (@BallyRays) July 1, 2022
The onslaught erased an early Rays lead. In the second inning, Harold Ramirez had a one-out single to left, then Josh Lowe followed with a double down the left-field line. He scored when catcher Rene Pinto drove him in with a groundout to third.
But they would get just one other run. That came in the fifth when Kiermaier singled and scored on a Ramirez double. The Rays had eight hits and drew two walks in five innings against against Toronto starter José Berríos, but could must just those two runs.
With the blowout, Rays outfielder Brett Phillips pitched the eighth inning for the Rays. Throwing pitches in the mid-60s, he pitched a scoreless inning.
The four-game losing streak matched its longest stretch of the season, The Rays have scored only nine runs in that span and were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
"We've got to stop the bleeding, no doubt about it," Kiermaier said.
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.