While this game had many inflection points, and at least a few scoring chances, I think the final score was largely determined by this fact: The Rays hitters could not figure out Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Their inability to create any sort of offense for five innings made this a very hard game to win, and they fell to the Dodgers 3-0 to lose this series.
Yamamoto got the Dodgers into the sixth inning, walking no one and scattering five singles. Mostly he got a lot of players to hit the ball harmlessly into the ground. Jake Magnum managed to beat one of these out for a single, but otherwise those ground balls were entirely unproductive.
The Rays had a few more scoring opportunities against the Dodgers bullpen, included bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. They failed to get that clutch hit, however, and in fact I believe it was only in that last inning they actually had been able to string together two hits in the same inning.
There were a lot of disappointing at bats today, but I think the most disappointing of all was Yandy’s 0-5, simply because in Aranda’s absence Yandy’s our main hope to get consistent hits. Twice Yandy came up with runners in scoring position and twice his outs ended the inning.
I won’t count Tristan Gray’s 9th inning strikeout as disappointing, because to be disappointed implies having some hope of success, and in that case I didn’t.
On the other side of the ball, Joe Boyle had much better results than he had in his previous start; he pitched five shut out innings. The deciding runs came against Englert who pitched two innings.
Freddie Freeman scored the Dodgers first run, and I’m still very surprised he scored from second on the hit. Watching the play in real time, Freeman seemed to be lumbering around third as the throw was hitting the cutoff man who then fired pretty accurately to the catcher. Maybe it all took just a few seconds too long, or maybe catcher Feduccia was too slow to get down a tag, but that run did seem preventable.
On the other hand, the Rays few highlight plays were on defense, with both Jake Mangum and Johnny De Luca making spectacular catches, all of which kept the score from getting to be even more lopsided. Nothing like outfielders who can take efficient routes.
Final note: Catcher Feducci recently came to the Rays in a trade from the Dodgers, where the main knock on him was his poor throwing arm. So it’s no surprise that the Dodgers decided to take advantage of that arm, with 100% success on their four stolen base attempts.
The Rays now embark on a long west coast road trip. Get ready for some late afternoon coffee for all those 8:40 pm starts.