LOS ANGELES -- The Rays had a chance to silence Dodger Stadium and salvage another series in the ninth inning Wednesday afternoon.
Trailing by a run, they loaded the bases with two outs against left-hander Alex Vesia before Cedric Mullins struck out. The crowd roared, and the Rays headed home on the wrong end of a 5-4 defeat and a three-game series sweep.
“We had some good at-bats there right at the end, just fell a little bit short,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Felt like we fell short a lot this series.”
That was, indeed, the story of the last three days in Chavez Ravine. The Rays lost Monday’s series opener, 4-3, on Miguel Rojas’ seventh-inning homer off Steven Matz. They were outdueled despite a brilliant start by Drew Rasmussen on Tuesday night and lost, 1-0, on a sixth-inning shot by Shohei Ohtani.
And they dropped the series finale on a go-ahead, sixth-inning homer by Freddie Freeman off reliever Kevin Kelly, wasting a rare four-run rally against Ohtani in the fifth. The Dodgers won three straight one-run games for the first time since May 15-17, 2022, and pulled out all three on a go-ahead homer in the sixth inning or later.
“That's just baseball, really,” Kelly said. “We're going to play a lot of close games. Sometimes we come out on top. Sometimes they get the upper hand.”
The Rays were in every game. They kept it close. But close isn’t enough against the two-time defending World Series champions, and it wasn’t enough to reverse Tampa Bay’s worst skid of the season. After narrowly avoiding a sweep against the Angels, this sweep concluded a 1-5 trip to Southern California, bringing the Rays’ record to 7-15 since May 24 and 41-30 overall.
A lack of offense was the Rays’ biggest issue in their first four losses on this trip, as they combined to score only six total runs in those games. That wasn’t the problem on Wednesday, as they scored four in one inning against Ohtani, who entered the day leading the Majors in ERA (1.06) among pitchers with at least 50 innings this season.
Down by two runs, the Rays sent nine batters to the plate in an inning that set a new mark for the two-way superstar’s season-high total for earned runs allowed, and marked only the second time he’s given up multiple runs in the same inning this year. A walk, a sacrifice fly and five hits later, they had a 4-2 lead.
“We were able to differentiate the pitches that he was throwing, we put up good at-bats, and obviously the runs came,” said Yandy Díaz through interpreter Kevin Vera.
But runs came in bunches for the Dodgers, too. They scored two against starter Shane McClanahan in the fourth, when his command wavered as he walked three, gave up a pair of RBI singles and exited with two outs and the bases loaded.
The Rays took him off the hook, but the left-hander was still frustrated after his shortest start of the season. As good as he felt physically, with his fastball averaging 96.9 mph, he didn’t think he made the necessary adjustment when the Dodgers essentially eliminated his devastating changeup as part of their approach.
“Kind of a little period of growing pains, where I feel like my stuff the last three times out there has possibly been the best all season, and unfortunately I just haven't had the results,” said McClanahan, who is 0-2 with a 7.11 ERA over his last three starts. “This is a long season. I'm confident in myself and confident in this team.”
Clinging to a one-run lead in the sixth, the Rays turned into Kelly -- their most reliable setup man this season. He gave up a double to Andy Pages on a first-pitch sinker, then left a sinker over the plate after falling behind in the count. Freeman hammered it to center field for a two-run homer.
“He knows I'm probably coming back with a sinker, I left it up, and that's basically it,” Kelly said. “He put a good swing on it.”
The Rays didn’t go down quietly, as they pushed the Dodgers to the brink in the ninth. Mullins worked a full count, only to go down swinging on a slider over the plate.
Close, but just short.
“You come [out] on the wrong side of three one-run ballgames, [I would] like to think that -- and know that -- we're good enough to find ways to win games,” Cash said. “We just didn't over the last three days.”