By Marc Topkin, Times Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG — It’s hard to say there is any one reason the Rays are losing games when it matters most.
Because so much is going wrong.
They’re giving games away late. They’re not scoring runs when they have chances. They’re losing at home. They’re even losing on concert nights.
But most of all, they keep losing. Saturday’s 8-6 handover to the Tigers — they led by three as late as the seventh — made it three straight, six of nine in their critical 17-game stretch and 15 of their past 27.
So much for battling to get back into the AL wild-card race.
“We’ve got to get better,” starter James Shields said. “We’ve got to get better.”
There were the usual descriptions of the loss as unfortunate and disappointing and not much emotion in the largely vacant clubhouse, with the assumption most of the players weren’t rushing to get a good spot for the postgame Beach Boys show.
Making it worse, the Rays for a second straight day wasted a rare chance to gain ground on the wild-card-leading Red Sox, who lost again in Chicago. As a result, the Rays are 72-63 and six games behind the Sox with 27 to play.
Plus, they ensured a losing homestand, at 1-4 heading into today’s finale, for the third time in the past two seasons. And they lost for the second time in 17 postgame concerts over that span.
The focal point lately has been the failure of the bullpen, and Saturday it was a group effort. Once the Tigers cut the lead to 6-5, Maddon used five relievers in the seventh and eighth innings and — for various and assorted reasons — none got the job done. More – TampaBay.com
