Mason Montgomery got lit up on a bullpen night, and the Tampa Bay Rays lost 6-5 to the last-place Chicago White Sox on Wednesday night, severely damaging their playoff hopes.
CHICAGO — Bullpen games are a crapshoot for even the best of pitching staffs. It’s a big ask to have six or seven pitchers cover nine innings and all be successful on the same night.
The Tampa Bay Rays had to do that Wednesday night when reliable pitcher Ryan Pepiot couldn’t go. because of fatigue, missing his first start of the year. They trotted out six pitchers, and five of them did well.
Mason Montgomery was the exception.
The hard throwing left-hander missed a few spots here and there and gave up five runs in the second inning. He faced eight batters, giving up three doubles, two singles and a walk in a brutal performance.
The Rays pecked away, but squandered several other scoring opportunities and wound up losing 6-5 at Rate Field.
The loss, for all intents and purposes, might very well have eliminated the Rays from playoff contention. With only 17 games to go they are now 72-73 and 5 1/2 games behind the Seattle Mariners in the wild-card race and have three other teams ahead of them as well.
They came to Chicago needing a sweep against the last-place White Sox (56-90) and now it's not going to happen.
“We’ve said this about a handful of our relievers this year, and he’s going through it right now,“ Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said of Montgomery. ”Nothing’s going his way. And I think it comes down to execution of pitches.
"He got to two strikes with some guys, had really good stuff. But when you look at the breaking ball that was left to [Mike] Tauchman, that was middle-middle, and you have to try to bury that or get him to expand out of the zone, and he didn’t have to.”
Montgomery admitted to be frustrated with the result, because he felt like he made a lot of good pitches. But he also ''missed too many spots'' in allowing five straight base runners. He's now 1-3 on the year with a whopping 5.67 ERA. It jumped more than a full run since arriving in Chicago, because he gave up a run and blew a save on Tuesday night too in the Rays' 5-4 win.
The bullpen night worked well otherwise, with starter Griffin Jax, Kevin Kelly, Joe Rock, Bryan Baker and Cole Sulser covering 7 1/3 innings and allowing just one run on three hits.
The Rays battled to get back in the game with some monumental hits. Yandy Diaz homered in the first, his career-high 23rd of the year. And Junior Caminero hit his 42nd home run in the fifth, moving to within four of Carlos Pena for the Rays record.
But they also blew two other golden opportunities that would have made a difference. In the top or the second, they loaded the bases with three walks from White Sox starter Sean Burke — who had just been called up from the minors earlier in the day — but then shortstop Carson Williams struck out and speedster Chandler Simpson hit into a double play.
“We did everything right to load the bases, but we couldn’t find that big hit,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Carson came up, ended up striking out, and then Chandler hit into a very uncharacteristic double play that you don’t see happen very often.
“Carson comes back up and hits a big home run so you're happy about that. But when you get three walks in an inning and there’s no outs, you’re expecting to get something.”
Williams, the 22-year-old rookie who is the Rays' top prospect, homered in the fifth inning, and Hunter Feduccia had an RBI single in the sixth to make it 6-5. They got another golden opportunity in the ninth, but the Rays let that one evaporate, too.
Feduccia and Tristan Gray both walked to open the inning, and Chandler Simpson bunted them into scoring position. But then Diaz and Brandon Lowe, both of whom have had great seasons, both struck out to end the game.
Lowe is 0-for-10 since Sunday, and struck out four times Wednesday night. He also struck out twice Tuesday. Diaz had a big night, but couldn't get it done in the ninth inning either. It was a frustrating ending to what could have been a nice personal night.
“On a personal basis, it was good,” Diaz said through team interpreter Eddie Rodriguez. “But we didn’t win the game, so it doesn’t matter.”
It was the third loss to the White Sox this year for the Rays, a disturbing trend. They lost the series to the White Sox last year, too, going 2-4 during a year when the White Sox set an MLB record with 121 losses.
Chicago has been much better in the second half this season — they are 24-25 since the All-Star Break — but the Rays still couldn't afford even one loss against them. With only 17 games to go and four teams still ahead of them to make the playoffs, this loss was a crusher.
“I’m a person that likes to win, but we weren't able to get the win (Wednesday),” he said. “Yes, getting to the 42 mark, it’s great, but we didn’t get the win. And we hopefully will get the win (Thursday).”
Ian Seymour (3-1, 2.89 ERA) will start for the Rays in the Thursday matinee, which starts at 2:10 p.m. ET. Shane Smith (5-7, 3.95 ERA) gets the call for the White Sox.
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