SEATTLE -- The Rays have become a home run hitting team. If you don't believe it, you can look it up, as Yogi might say.
The Rays have hit 11 home runs over the last five games and 23 over the last 13.
On Monday night, the Rays added two more home runs to their season totals in a 5-2 loss to the Mariners at Safeco Field.
Felix Hernandez had held the Rays hitless through three innings when Corey Dickerson led off the fourth. The slugger swung at the first pitch, riding a 90-mph sinker the opposite direction. When the ball landed on the other side of the left-field wall, Dickerson had his seventh home run of the season and he'd tied the game at 1. Evan Longoria added a solo shot to center field in the fifth to put the Rays up, 2-1.
The home runs are nice, but seemingly it's largely the only way they Rays are able to score this season. Home runs have accounted for 55.7 percent of the team's runs this season.
Rays manager Kevin Cash said scoring runs via home runs is "not really" a concern.
"I think you kind of wash out today," Cash said. "It's Felix Hernandez, you know he's going to be tough. We're going to be in a tight ballgame, a low-scoring ballgame. ... We'll take 'em any way. Eventually, yeah, you'd like to see us be able to manufacture a little differently. But we'll take them however we can get them."
The Rays went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position Monday night. They are now hitting .152 with runners in scoring position over the last 12 games.
Scoring only with home runs is "just kind of a quirky period," Rays hitting coach Derek Shelton said. "You take the runs any way you can get them. We have to be better with runners in scoring position."