Squandered opportunities and a struggling bullpen haunted the Texas Rangers at Tropicana Field against the Tampa Bay Rays.
A pair of solo home runs by the Tampa Bay Rays forced the Texas Rangers to fall to 55-54.
Tampa Bay came out on top at Tropicana Field, 3-2, in a game that saw the Rangers lead 2-1 through five innings.
It was a bullpen day for the Rangers, one that featured a spot start from Cole Winn, who was pulled from the game after throwing a 12-pitch first inning.
From there, Marco Gonzales did his thing before Peyton Gray picked up his second blown save of the year, and then Ben Peoples took the loss after giving up a homer to Cedric Mullins in the eighth inning.
The Rangers offense mustered up just two hits in the game. Coincidentally, it happened to be the leadoff and number nine batters who recorded those, while Joc Pederson had a pinch-hit appearance where he drove in a run. Other than that, this offense was nothing if not for Wyatt Langford's RBI and Alejandro Osuna's base hit.
Rangers leave nine runners on base
Even though they only had two hits as a team, Texas drew seven walks. The Rays' pitching staff was off their game, to say the least, but they stepped up when it mattered and forced the Rangers to go 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.
Ezequiel Duran hit behind Langford in the lineup, and he had three chances to drive a runner in. Of the Rangers' eight hits with a RISP, he was a dreadful 0-for-3. A few spots down in the lineup, Jake Burger went 0-for-2 in those situations while a trio of other hitters all came up empty in their lone plate appearance with a runner on.
Texas scored their runs in the fourth and fifth innings, the two frames that featured their most baserunners of the game, by far. That said, they had two on with two outs in the ninth, but Duran once again came up empty and struck out on just four pitches to end the game.
Mullins homer called game
The aforementioned Gray blew his second game of the year thanks to a Jonny DeLuca bomb in the sixth inning. The 28-year-old hit one to left field at 415 feet to tie the game, 2-2. Gray recorded the final two outs on just five pitches, but by that point the damage was done.
Two innings later, Mullins got just enough of his first-pitch fastball off Peoples. In his fourth pitch of the game, Peoples left a 96-mph four-seamer that resulted in a Mullins 338-foot homer to left field.
There's no shame in dropping a series to the best team in the American League, but this one is going to sting for a while.
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