Rays’ Bats Went Cold In Cleveland After Struggling Down The Stretch

With runners on first and third and one out in the top of the 15^th inning, a flyball of medium depth off southpaw Sam Hentges would have scored the fleet Vida Brujan from third to break the seemingly unbreakable ice in Game 2 of the Rays’ wild card series against Cleveland.

Alas, Francisco Mejia went down swinging on three pitches. Then, with two outs and needing a base hit, Jose Siri went down swinging on three pitches.

That sequence of offensive ineptitude was the exclamation point to a series in which the Rays hit .115 (9-for-78) with 29 strikeouts. They went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, including 0-for-6 in Game 2.

The first four batters in the lineup for both games at Progressive Field — Yandy Diaz (0-for-10), Wander Franco (1-for-9), Randy Arozarena (1-for-9) and Harold Ramirez (1-for-9) — were a combined 3-for-37 with 14 strikeouts.

“It’s frustrating, no doubt,” said manager Kevin Cash, following Saturday’s marathon. “We just could not get anything going offensively, a bunch of strikeouts. I’d like to think that we could have some better at-bats. But in this two-game series you saw about as good a pitching as you’re going to see.”

While the pitching was exceptional on both sides, the Rays went into the postseason leaking some serious oil offensively. In fact, after clinching a playoff spot with a 7-3 win at Houston on September 30, Tampa Bay failed to win another game while going 0-for-October. They went 0-7 while scoring all of nine runs and hitting .151. They were 2-for-32 (.062) with runners in scoring position.

As head-scratching as those numbers are, they are not too surprising when considering how many players were slumping over the last couple of weeks, or longer, of the regular season. To that extent, consider the following….

*Arozarena was 2-for-29 with 14 strikeouts in his last eight games.

*Jonathan Aranda, who did not appear in the wild card series, was hitless in last 26 at-bats.

*Compared to many of his teammates, Ji-Man Choi was scorching in the season’s final week by going 8-for-19 in six games. Now, let’s put things in a larger context. That mini spree raised his post-all-star break average from .123 to .164. He then went 0-for-5 against Cleveland.

*Manny Margot hit .166 (10-for-60) in his last 15 games before going 1-for-8 in the wild card series.

*Following a three-hit game against Texas on September 16, Francisco Mejia finished the season 2-for-27. He was 0-for-3 in the wild card.

*Isaac Paredes hit .138 (10-for-72) since the calendar turned to September. At least he was the only Rays player to reach base safely more than twice (2H, BB) in the two-game series against Cleveland.

*Harold Ramirez hit .198 (19-for-96) in his last 27 games and was hitless in his last 15 at-bats. He then went 1-for-9 against the Guardians.

*Taylor Walls struggled to hit all season, and especially on the road where he hit .110 – you read that correctly – with 73 strikeouts in 219 at-bats. (Since May 16 his season’s average did not get above .181.)

When considering the above, is it any surprise the Rays scored all of 25 runs in their last 11 games? Thirteen of those runs were scored in their only two wins during that season-ending stretch. Looking at it another way, including the wild card series, the Rays scored one run or were shut out in 11 of their last 18 games.