The Tampa Bay Rays fall 4-2 to the Boston Red Sox, snapping their six-game winning streak. Ian Seymour struggles again, while Tampa Bay's offense goes 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position. With a four-game AL East lead over the Yankees, can the Rays regain momentum before the MLB playoffs?
The Tampa Bay Rays snap a six-game winning streak as they fall 4-2 to the Boston Red Sox at Tropicana Field on Friday night.
The team moves to 93-60 on the season and still holds a four-game lead over the New York Yankees, with just a handful of games remaining in the regular season.
Here is what you need to know from the contest.
Another shaky start from Seymour.
The Rays may have finally found their answer for the rotation for the postseason, and, likely, it will not include Ian Seymour.
It was another rough outing as he allowed four earned runs, including two homers, in five innings of work and picked up his seventh loss of the season.
It may be a good idea for Kevin Cash and the staff to start working him back in as a reliever, something Seymour did before transitioning to the rotation for the postseason. The team has flirted with putting a starter in front of Seymour a few times this season, but since he likely has only one or two starts remaining this regular season, it may be worth returning to that idea.
Seymour now has a 4.38 ERA on the season.
On a positive note, the bullpen that followed Seymour was near perfect. Ty Johnson, Casey Legumina, and Alexander Cook pitched four innings of shutout baseball and picked up six strikeouts in the process.
Strikeouts were a problem.
It wasn't the best night for the Rays' bats, as the team struck out nine times and only recorded five hits against the Boston Red Sox pitching.
Junior Caminero and Jonathan Aranda each recorded a hit and an RBI, but other than that, the team was pretty flat on the offensive side.
The Rays struggled in a big way when it came to working with base traffic against the Red Sox, as they went 0 for 13 with runners in scoring position and left 12 men on base.
Rays can't fall off now.
This is a perfect opportunity for Tampa Bay to take advantage of the rest of their regular season schedule and clinch the AL East division in the next week. With the team currently facing the Red Sox, who are just a few games away from clinching a postseason berth themselves, Tampa Bay must use these games to prime themselves for postseason baseball.
The team will be back in action on Saturday for the middle game of the series against the Red Sox. Freddy Peralta will get another chance to solidify himself as a postseason starter, as he is set to get the start for Tampa Bay. First pitch at Tropicana Field is scheduled for 4:10 pm Eastern.
