Fleming delivers gutsy outing, but bats quiet

After the Rays scuffled through another low-scoring loss, in which the offense was kept off the board for the first eight innings, manager Kevin Cash was asked if his hitters were pressing. He laughed.

“Yeah, we’re pressing,” Cash said following the Rays’ 3-1 loss to the Astros on Saturday at Tropicana Field. “And they probably should be at this point. They wanna do stuff to get us out of it. One guy, one big swing with guys on base in a tight ballgame makes everybody feel good.

“There’s nothing wrong with pressing or admitting it. We might as well embrace it because we’re in this situation, and we’ve got to get out of it together.”

Through nine games of their current homestand, the Rays have produced just 20 runs -- including two or fewer runs six times -- and they’re batting just 5-for-60 with runners in scoring position (.083).

On Saturday, the only damage dealt by the Astros came in the first inning -- and that was all they needed.

Rays starter Josh Fleming -- who took a hard-luck, 1-0 loss as a “bulk” pitcher on Sunday against Toronto -- dealt a first-pitch double to Jose Altuve, and Altuve scored two batters later on an Alex Bregman single. A pair of walks and a two-run single for Yuli Gurriel followed -- all part of a difficult 34-pitch frame.

To Fleming’s credit, he locked in from there, matching Houston starter José Urquidy with clean inning after clean inning. From the second through the sixth, Fleming didn’t allow any hits or runs, averaging 12.8 pitches per inning. He allowed a career-high five walks, but only one scored.

“I came in [after the first] and just told myself, ‘That’s all they get, that’s all they get,’” Fleming said. He stopped trying to pick corners and instead attacked the strike zone en route to the second quality start of his career.

But the Rays did little to support the 24-year-old lefty, struggling to solve the strike-pumping Urquidy. Frankly, it hasn’t mattered who the Rays have faced lately -- they just aren’t finding any hits.

“We’re confident we’re gonna break out of it,” Cash said. “I wish I could pick the game or the inning or whatever, but it’s tough to do.”

If he had his choice, Cash probably would’ve picked the bottom of the ninth inning, when the Rays pieced together their only real threat by putting the first two runners on against Astros closer Ryan Pressly.

Brandon Lowe, who had two of the team’s five hits, singled and Randy Arozarena followed with a four-pitch walk. That meant, despite nearly a full game of futility, the Rays would have three chances with the tying run at the plate.

Their hope was short-lived, though, as Pressly coaxed groundouts out of the ensuing trio of hitters.

“It’s frustrating,” said Joey Wendle, one of the groundout victims. “I think everybody’s feeling it right now. I think, as a unit, we all expect better out of ourselves. ... It’s been a rough stretch. I don’t know any other way to put it.”

The rough stretch has carried through the entire nine-game stay at The Trop, where home field has hardly brought an advantage. The Rays are now 6-10 at home in 2021, already surpassing their home loss total from the pandemic-shortened 2020 season (20-9).

As much as the Rays struggled offensively on Saturday, and in the past nine games, there’s something to be said about the fact they were just a swing or two away from flipping the game script. That’s a credit to the recent work of the pitching staff, which has held a 3.00 ERA in the past eight games and allowed more than three runs just once in that span.

Fleming did his part against Houston, and he expects the offense will do the same quite soon.

“Teams are gonna go through slumps where they’re not gonna score runs for a few games,” Fleming said. “It’s baseball. I know our bats are gonna come alive, and when they do, we’re gonna be a dangerous team.”