GABP remains house of horrors for Rays

CINCINNATI -- Last summer, the Rays’ season reached its low point at Great American Ball Park. Over three days in July, Tampa Bay sustained a slew of key injuries, suffered back-to-back walk-off defeats (including a rare balk-off loss) and fell a season-high 15 1/2 games out of first place as it was swept by a Cincinnati team that went on to lose 100 games.

By comparison, the Rays’ 8-1 loss to the Reds on Monday night wasn’t so bad.

But Tampa Bay’s third loss in the past four games was an all-around uncharacteristic performance. Its pitching staff let innings get away. Its lineup, which roared back to life in Sunday’s 8-1 win in Toronto, started rallies but couldn’t finish them. And the team that had been hitting .346 with runners in scoring position this season went 0-for-10 in those spots, stranding nine runners overall.

“That was kind of the story of the game,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “When they got guys on base, they found hits. We got guys on base, we didn't.”

Left-hander Jalen Beeks kept the Rays in the game for three innings, permitting only a Statcast-projected 352-foot solo shot to Kevin Newman in his role as Tampa Bay’s opener. But rookie reliever Kevin Kelly got himself in trouble in the fourth and couldn’t escape.

Newman led off the inning with a double to left field, then Kelly loaded the bases by walking Jake Fraley on four pitches and Nick Senzel on five. The side-arming Rule 5 Draft pick struck out Jose Barrero, but TJ Friedl made the most of the Reds’ opportunity with a bases-clearing double to right-center.

Kelly said he was struggling to properly grip his sinker and sweeping slider, noting that the cooler temperature -- 52 degrees at first pitch, with winds whipping out to left field -- may have played a part.

“But that's no excuse,” Kelly said. “Just adjusting to it quicker would have been the thing to do differently.”

“[The Reds] had some good at-bats. They certainly didn't help him out by expanding,” Cash said. “They kind of capitalized in a big way.”

The Rays had no such luck in the sixth inning, their best chance to break through against a Reds pitching staff that lost flame-throwing starter Hunter Greene after only three innings due to a right tibia contusion resulting from a Yandy Díaz comebacker.

Tampa Bay loaded the bases with one out against left-hander Alex Young, bringing Josh Lowe to the plate. But Lowe went down swinging on a changeup outside the zone, and the Reds summoned right-hander Ian Gibaut to face Manuel Margot.

At that point, Margot felt he’d already been robbed of one bloop hit. Leading off the fifth, his 69.8 mph looper to left -- which came with an expected batting average of .980 -- wound up in the glove of Stuart Fairchild. He seemed to have another chance of finding grass against Gibaut, lofting a popup to shallow right with an expected batting average of .880.

But Jake Fraley, a 2016 Rays Draft pick who was part of the Mike Zunino trade with the Mariners in November 2018, had other plans. Fraley made a diving catch to steal a hit that could have put Tampa Bay back in the game.

“It's difficult to see. It is part of the game,” Margot said through interpreter Manny Navarro. “On both of those plays, I thought they weren't going to have a chance, but obviously they made it. … It’s a little tough. … I left a lot of guys on base.”

Right-hander Cooper Criswell, called up Monday morning to provide depth to a staff without two starters from the Opening Day rotation, helped preserve the bullpen by covering the final four innings. But the Reds tacked on two runs in the seventh, when Criswell hit consecutive batters and allowed a pair of two-out singles, and two more in the eighth.

The Rays kept one element of their season-opening hot streak alive, however. Lowe’s ninth-inning homer to center field, his fourth of the season, gave Tampa Bay a home run in each of its first 17 games, the second-longest such streak in AL/NL history behind only the 2019 Mariners’ 20-game run.

On Tuesday, the Rays will set out to end another streak: They haven’t won a game in Cincinnati since April 12, 2014, having dropped five straight in the Queen City.

“It wasn't fun last year. Good thing we’ve got two more games here,” Beeks said. “We're not fazed or anything. We're just going to keep playing.”