Rays 4, Royals 7: Rays battle but drop 6th straight in extras

Civale battled through five innings and the Rays scored just enough until they didn’t

The Tampa Bay Rays entered Saturday’s late afternoon game on the heels of a five game skid hoping to get back in the win column behind a hopefully resurgent Aaron Civale. While Civale was better than he has been in a long time, the Rays would eventually drop their sixth straight game, this time in extra innings, to the Kansas City Royals.

Civale worked a scoreless first, but surrendered a second inning solo blast to Nelson Velazquez to open the scoring and give the Royals a 1-0 lead. The following inning, an RBI single from Bobby Witt Jr extended the Royals lead to 2-0.

In the bottom of the fourth inning, Jonathon Aranda hit a towering drive off the catwalk to cut the deficit to a run. The homer was his first of the year and second extra base knock of the game following a leadoff double in the second inning.

The Rays would tie the game in the bottom of the fifth inning thanks to a sharply hit grounder off the bat of Isaac Paredes. The Rays third baseman was retired on the play, but Richie Palacios scored.

Civale’s day would be done after five innings. He threw five innings of two run baseball surrendering four hits and one walk in the process. He struck out five.

On came just about every arm the Rays have down in the pen. First was Maton who tossed a scoreless sixth. Then, Cleavinger who loaded the bases prior to getting an out, but was able to escape with just one allowed run which gave the Royals a 3-2 lead in the seventh.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Rays tied the game and with the bases loaded and one out, Yandy Diaz pinch-hit for Aranda with a chance to give the Rays their first lead. However, the Rays first baseman grounded into a double play ending the Rays threat with the game tied at 3-3.

Adam and Fairbanks combined for a scoreless eighth and ninth to get the game to extra innings. Kelly and Lovelady both pitched in the 10th and the Royals were able to scratch across their Manfred run.

With the Rays down to their last out in the bottom half of the tenth, Johnny DeLuca tied the game with a double getting the Rays a Manfred run of their own.

The game would head into the 11th and with limited options remaining down the right field line, Cash stuck with Lovelady who was tagged with three runs (two earned), and four hits. Devenski recorded the final out of the 11th, but the Rays now trailed and would eventually lose 7-4.

The loss dropped the Rays three games below .500. Their run differential now sits at -50, the fifth worst in baseball behind only the Rockies, Athletics, Marlins, and White Sox. The Rays were 2-14 with RISP and left 11 on base. They only tallied three extra base hits, two of which came off the bat of Aranda.

And, yet again they scored just enough until... they didn’t.