The Rays couldn’t have asked for better starting pitching in their first two games of the season. Tyler Glasnow threw six dazzling innings on Opening Day, then Ryan Yarbrough kept the Marlins off-balance on Friday night. But very little went according to plan for the Rays in their first loss of the season, a 12-7 defeat against the Marlins on Saturday night at loanDepot park.

Left-hander Rich Hill gave up four runs in four innings, right-hander Chris Archer needed 52 pitches to record six outs, and the Rays’ bullpen struggled to slow down a Miami lineup that scored in every inning but one in the Opening Series finale.

• Box score

“Obviously it wasn’t ideal,” manager Kevin Cash said. “I’m not sure anybody had that great of a night tonight for us.”

The tandem starter arrangement that Tampa Bay designed for Hill and Archer was likely just a one-time thing, the product of a schedule with two early off-days and a gradual buildup for the two veteran pitchers. The Rays expect to split them up during their next turn through the rotation, slotting them in alongside Glasnow, Yarbrough and Michael Wacha.

Hill threw a lot of strikes, struck out four and only walked two, but the Marlins hit two doubles and a homer against him, scored one run per inning while he was on the mound, and swung and missed on just two of his 71 pitches.

“The ball came out well,” Hill said. “But we were going out there scoring runs, and letting in more runs, when it's our opportunity to stop them, isn't really helping the team.”

Archer took over in the fifth for his first regular-season relief appearance since Sept. 29, 2012, and his first outing of any kind since Aug. 20, 2019. He said he wouldn’t be too critical of his performance, disappointed as he was, knowing that it had been a long time since he pitched in a game that counted and even longer since he’d pitched out of the bullpen.

“I hate that we took the 'L' and I took the 'L' personally. I was responsible for it. But there’s a lot of good also, and we won the series,” Archer said. “We’re heading to Boston with twice as many wins as losses, so there’s a lot to hang our hat on.”

Here were four key sequences that turned Saturday’s game against the Rays:

Third inning: Cooper crushes a curve
After needing 44 pitches to get through two innings, Hill was cruising in the third. He retired the first two hitters on four pitches and quickly got ahead of Garrett Cooper. But Hill left a two-strike, 66 mph curveball up just enough for the right-handed-hitting Cooper to smash it 364 feet out to left field and give Miami a 3-2 lead.

“It was just a really bad pitch. Should have bounced,” Hill said. “Really disappointed in that pitch. And obviously the result of it, being in an 0-2 count and an opportunity to have a pitch that should have been executed better and it wasn't, he ended up doing what he should have done with it.”

Fourth inning: All that Jazz
Speedy Marlins rookie Jazz Chisholm Jr. manufactured a run on his own in Hill’s final inning. Chisholm worked a leadoff, five-pitch walk, stole second and third, then scored on Chad Wallach’s sacrifice fly to make it a 4-2 game. Hill took the blame for not controlling Chisholm on the basepaths, although he seemingly had an opportunity to pick him off when he was attempting to steal second.

“Rich has been around a long time. He totally is capable of just kind of controlling the running game,” Cash said. “He did a nice job of stepping off, but I don't know if he lost grip [on the ball] or what it was. But we’ve got to do a good job of preventing that moving forward.”

Fifth inning: Meadows’ misplays
Archer didn’t get much help in the field in the fifth inning, as right fielder Austin Meadows got turned around on a Jesús Aguilar fly ball that landed as a double, then couldn’t grab the next ball hit to him by Cooper. That sequence left the game tied at 6, negating the Rays’ four-run rally in the fifth.

“The one that Aguilar hit, it came off the bat funny. He kind of inside-outed it, so it had some crazy slice, and Meadows got twisted up out there,” Archer said. “It happens. Part of being on a team is you pick each other up, and I did my best. And we fought after that. We didn’t give up. We fought all the way to the end, so that’s really all you can ask.”

Seventh inning: Walking out
Archer bounced back in the sixth, keeping the game tied as his velocity ticked up and his slider sharpened up, only to walk leadoff man Miguel Rojas in the seventh then give up a hard single to Starling Marte. He gave way to reliever Ryan Thompson, who allowed a walk and an RBI single, then lefty Jeffrey Springs allowed a two-run single to Jon Berti with two outs in the seventh. The Marlins scored three more in the eighth off right-hander Collin McHugh.

“I felt pretty good. I think my biggest flaw was the four-pitch walk to lead off the third inning. That late in the game, you can’t do things like that,” Archer said. “If I could go back, I would try to land a few strikes to him and make him earn his way on rather than give him a free pass.”