Good pitch, bad result as Rays miss chance to gain on O's

MINNEAPOLIS -- Zack Littell had to take a second look, even if briefly, at the home run he allowed in the seventh inning on Tuesday night.

The second look didn’t make the Rays right-hander feel any better.

Littell thought he made a good pitch, a first-pitch slider down below the zone. The replay confirmed his belief. But Willi Castro went down and got it, golfing a two-run homer to put the Twins on top in the Rays' 3-2 loss at Target Field.

“It leaves a bad taste in your mouth,” Littell said. “Being the seventh inning there, it would be frustrating if I grooved one and he hit it out. It’s equally, if not more, frustrating to make a decent pitch and him still do it. But hitters get paid, too, and sometimes you just get beat.”

Littell had another strong outing, this time against his former team. But the Rays missed a chance to gain ground on the Orioles in the American League East.

• Games remaining: at MIN (1), at BAL (4), vs. LAA (3), vs. TOR (3), at BOS (2), at TOR (3)
• Standings update: The Orioles (91-53) hold a three-game lead over the Rays (89-57) in the AL East. Tampa Bay remains the top AL Wild Card team, the club that gets to host a best-of-three Wild Card Series against the AL’s No. 5 seed, with an eight-game lead over Texas (80-64), which beat Toronto (80-65) to move into the second Wild Card spot.
• Magic number: 6 (for postseason clinch).

Littell allowed three runs in seven innings in the second straight quality start for the former reliever. He yielded five hits and had a career-high eight strikeouts. Castro’s homer in the seventh helped Minnesota come from behind to split the first two games of the series.

“It sucks for it to happen there, to lose the lead there in the seventh,” Littell said. “It’s one of those I might lose sleep over tonight, but come in tomorrow and know that overall it was a good effort and take it into next week.”

René Pinto had two hits, including a homer, for Tampa Bay, which lost leading hitter Yandy Díaz to a testicular contusion in the fifth inning. Díaz fouled a ball into the ground, which then bounced back up and hit him in the groin area.

“I hope not,” manager Kevin Cash said when asked if Díaz will need time off. “It will be day to day. But as of right now, I hope not.”

The Rays had their four-game winning streak snapped by the AL Central-leading Twins while the Orioles lost at home to St. Louis.

Littell, who pitched for Minnesota in his first three Major League seasons, was making his 10th “true” start of the season after beginning the year in a relief and opener role. Over his past nine starts, Littell has a 3.86 ERA and 38 strikeouts against just four walks in 53 2/3 innings.

“Hitting the corners, yeah,” Pinto said of the reason for Littell’s recent success. “He’s hitting all his pitches and creating space one pitch to the other, like, separation. I think that’s helping him.”

After throwing just 86 pitches in a career-high eight innings in his last start, Littell had another efficient outing. He didn’t walk a batter and threw 85 pitches, 67 for strikes.

“Pretty remarkable how he’s done it over and over,” Cash said. “He just is so committed to the strike zone. Teams know it and they don’t want to get deep in the count with him, so he gets a lot of early swings and a lot of early outs.”

All the runs scored against Littell were on home runs. Rookie Edouard Julien hit a solo homer in the third.

“He has like five legitimate good pitches that he uses, and he just fires in the strike zone,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “His strike throwing is at a level today that you don’t see very often. He’s a good strike thrower, and we expected him to be in the zone, so we were going to have to be aggressive swinging the bat. You’re not going to beat him by standing there and thinking he’s going to walk you.”

Castro was ready, even when Littell felt he made a good pitch.