The Rays had another comeback brewing Monday night at Tropicana Field, and for a while it looked like the latest chapter in a season that keeps finding dramatic endings. Instead, the rally stopped one beat short, and a 3-2 loss to the Mets snapped Tampa Bay’s four-game winning streak.
Down 3-0 after seven innings, the Rays pushed across two runs in the eighth on RBI singles from Liam Hicks and Chandler Simpson. Then came the kind of pressure situation they’ve been cashing in on lately: two quick runners in scoring position with Cedric Mullins at the plate. Chris Devenski shut that down by getting Mullins on a comebacker, and Kodai Senga later caught Yandy Díaz looking at strike three to leave the tying run stranded in the ninth.
No finish this time.
“I always believe in these guys, no matter what the score is, really. They just don't quit,” starter Ian Seymour said.
“We fight to the end. That's just sort of who we are as a team … and I'm confident we'll probably pull that one off another time.”
Seymour was still the story, even in defeat. The left-hander wasn’t spotless - he allowed a run on a pair of hits and a double-play grounder in the fourth, then gave up a Mark Vientos homer in the seventh. The runner he left aboard in that inning also scored after Seymour came out.
But the full line tells you how much he gave the Rays: 10 strikeouts, no walks, a career-high 19 swinging strikes, and seven innings on 88 pitches, 65 of them strikes.
“I know he's that guy right now that's probably not getting the run support, but he kept us in the ballgame,” manager Kevin Cash said. “That's really all you can ask.”
The strikeouts keep piling up, too. Seymour has taken the loss in each of his past three starts, but he’s thrown 17 innings in that span while getting only two runs of support. This month, he led all Major League pitchers with 48 strikeouts, and his 12-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in August ranked fourth in franchise history for any month, minimum 30 innings.
That’s the kind of swing-and-miss profile that can change how the Rays deploy him. With Griffin Jax set to come off the injured list soon, Tampa Bay is heading toward a crowded rotation picture with six healthy, effective starters. Since the Rays have every Monday off in September, a six-man rotation would be hard to manage.
One possible answer: use Seymour in a bulk-inning role after another starter, giving the club a way to manage workloads for everyone involved while keeping him in the picture. That could help the Rays keep Jax, Drew Rasmussen, Freddy Peralta, Shane McClanahan and Nick Martinez fresh down the stretch.
The missed chance in the fifth was just as costly. With the bases loaded and nobody out against Robert Stock, the Rays couldn’t cash in. Taylor Walls popped out, Díaz struck out and Jonathan Aranda flied out, ending the inning without a run.
“We just missed, right? There's not much else to say,” Díaz said through interpreter Kevin Vera. “We missed the opportunity, and you would like the runs in that situation because it probably would have won us the game.”
Díaz also passed on using the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System in the ninth, even though he had two pitches he could have challenged. One appeared to be a high fastball above the zone, and the other looked like it caught the inside corner.
“In the moment, I had the mindset of maybe doing it,” Díaz said. “Again, in that heat of the moment, I just didn't pull the trigger.
… Look, the whole challenge thing, it's not super important to me. I'm just trying to win the game every single day, win the game for our team.
So challenge or not, it is what it is.”
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