Rays 1 Rangers 7: A disappointing end to a challenging season

I thought last year’s loss to Cleveland in the Wild Card series was a low point. If you recall, the team scored zero runs in two games, one of which went into extra innings.

But 2023 said “hold my beer” — because this year we also got two games with almost no scoring, this time accompanied by poor defense and less stellar pitching. So instead of two excruciatingly close games we got two games in which the Rays at no time seemed to be within spitting distance of victory.

I don’t think y’all need or want a traditional recap of all the things that happened; the score says it all. The Rays did break a postseason scoreless inning stretch that the Boston-based announcer hired by ABC seemed to want to talk about nonstop. And they did manage eight hits, but only one extra base hit. Texas really helped themselves by not walking anyone all series. No free runs for the Rays.

Today they only committed one official error, but misplays that were not errors led to several base hits. And Eflin simply left them too deep in a hole, giving up five runs on two walks and eight hits in just five innings, for the team to have any sort of chance.

But of course even with stellar pitching, this offense was not going to win games. So we return to where we were a year ago.

We’ll have more time to reflect on 2023 — it had some wonderful highlights but also some difficult and ultimately impossible to overcome challenges. Let’s remember that baseball is a game and we watch because it’s fun, but what makes it fun is the emotional investment, which then makes it less fun after a loss.

Thanks for reading our site this season.