Rays 1, Red Sox 4: Losing Is Like Novocaine

The Rays lost again, but this one didn’t hurt too badly, because losing is like Novocaine. It wasn’t an embarrassing bullpen collapse. We weren't shut out. There weren’t any huge blunders that cost us the game. (There were blunders, mind you, but we would have lost anyway.) It was pretty much your basic, run of the mill 4-1 loss. The Rays have now lost five in a row and 21 of 24. Rinse and spit.

The Rays did win the first inning, so there’s that. Brad Miller hit a fly ball the other way that just kept carrying over the Monster. Unfortunately, that would it for the offense.

Not that they didn’t have more chances. A two-out single from Logan Morrison in the first went for naught. Corey Dickerson led of the second with a double off the Monster, and advanced as far as third before being stranded. Steven Souza reached on a error in the fourth, but was caught stealing on a nice play by Sandy Leon and Bogaerts. Nick Franklin’s double to lead off the fifth was followed by a couple Ks and a wicked smash from Logan Forsythe that Xander Bogaerts made a great play on. And back-to-back one-out singles in the sixth from Evan Longoria and Morrison gave way to a double play grounder from Souza. Finally, Longoria singled to lead off the ninth, but the rest of the side went quietly.

Matt Moore pitched well through the first three, and the Rays held their tenuous 1-0 lead into the fourth inning, when MattyMo walked Dustin Pedroia in a tough eight-pitch at bat, then caught way too much plate with an 0-2 fastball to Bogaerts. The ball got out quickly to left, giving the Sox a 2-1 lead.

In the fifth inning, things got stupid. Sandy Leon "singled" on a hard grounder to Longo. In reality, Evan almost got ate up by a bad hop, then uncorked a throw well wide of first.

This was followed by a drive to deep left-center by Mookie Betts that Souza (playing center today), did a nice job to run down. What he did not do such a good job of was catching the ball. It clanged off his glove, and the Sox had runners on second and third for Pedroia. The diminutive one of course came through with a single to left, scoring both runners. Moore then walked Bogaerts before buckling down to retire the side and limit the damage.

On the day, Moore’s trade value wasn’t damaged too much. He went six innings, giving up four runs (two earned) on seven hits, with four strikeouts and three walks.

Dylan Floro came on to pitch the seventh and eighth, and looked solid doing so, getting four ground outs and two strike outs to go with a double and a walk.

The Bright Side?

• Oswaldo Arcia made some routine plays look thrilling.
• Nick Franklin continues to look good at the plate, collecting a double and a line out.
• Nobody died.