Quite a turn of events for Cameron in road rematch against Rays

ST. PETERSBURG -- Noah Cameron would have loved for his start on Wednesday night against the Rays to be just like the first time he faced them in his career.

The Royals’ offense would have loved for their recent success with runners in scoring position to continue, too.

But you can’t always get what you want, and neither of those things came to fruition for Kansas City in its 5-3 loss at Tropicana Field.

When Cameron last saw the Rays, it was a different year (2025) and stadium (George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa). But everything was essentially new that day to the young left-hander as he was making his Major League debut -- and ultimately took a no-hitter into the seventh inning.

“A lot has happened in 14 months, for sure,” Cameron said. "Definitely have good memories here with the debut. ... I was hoping to pitch like I did last year against them, and it just didn't work out.”

Any no-no aspirations evaporated with a second-inning double, which was one of eight hits that Cameron allowed in his five innings of work. Tampa Bay’s five runs all came in the third and fourth innings, and Cameron needed 108 pitches to get his 15 outs.

“It was a grind,” manager Matt Quatraro said of the start. “They made him work. ... Just had a little trouble landing the offspeed for strikes and putting them away. A lot of deep counts.”

Cameron’s ERA now sits at 4.50 through 15 starts, far higher than his 2.99 mark across 24 starts as a rookie. Granted, his 4.18 FIP (fielding independent pitching) and 4.07 expected ERA signaled that he might have received some good luck in his first year in the Majors. This season, he is allowing a higher rate of hard contact, and efficiency has been a problem for him in some starts.

However, Cameron might be the recipient of a little bit of bad luck as well. His 3.43 FIP is far lower than his current ERA. His .314 BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is tied for the 18th highest among the 95 pitchers who have thrown at least 70 innings this season. His 65.1% left-on-base rate is tied for the 10th lowest.

“I think that's just part of baseball, part of pitching,” Cameron said. “And sometimes, we get really lucky. Hopefully, the tides will turn, but we’ve just got to keep pitching and just focusing on what we can control.”

There is some luck when it comes to hitting with runners in scoring position. Sometimes, you’re just not going to come up with that timely hit. That fate befell the Royals multiple times on Wednesday.

Their success with runners in scoring position is one of the reasons why they have a winning record in June (12-10). Kansas City entered Wednesday with a .288 average, a .798 OPS and a 115 wRC+ in RISP situations. By comparison, the Royals batted .229 with an MLB-worst .637 OPS and a 74 wRC+ in those spots through the end of May.

Wednesday’s defeat felt at times like a callback to those struggles as the Royals went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left eight on base.

Kansas City gave itself golden opportunities to seize control early as the first two batters reached base in the first and second innings. But that first inning ran into a dead end once Jac Caglianone struck out on a well-placed changeup and Salvador Perez chased a sweeper out of the zone to ground into a 6-3 double play.

“When you chase [Rays starter Griffin Jax] like that, it’s going to be easy for him,” Perez said. “I feel like I [got myself out] chasing a pitch out of the strike zone, but that's because he's good."

Jax, whom the Royals saw quite often when he was a reliever with the Twins over the previous five seasons, then worked around singles by Michael Massey and Isaac Collins that began the second inning and ultimately escaped with no damage by getting Carter Jensen to roll over to second base to leave the bases loaded.

“The goal is to get them out there and then get them in, and obviously, we didn't get them in tonight,” Massey said. “When you don’t get them in, you're not going to be in many games, but we've been pretty good at it here about the last six weeks or so.

“It's baseball. You're not going to have it every night. You’re going to get some tough breaks. We’ll come back at it tomorrow.”