'A tough one to swallow' for suddenly punchless Rays

ST. PETERSBURG -- The ball came off Matt Olson’s bat at 98.7 mph and skidded through the right side of the infield. From his spot at second base, Brandon Lowe got to it quicker than he expected, anticipated a ball hit harder than it was and reached out farther than he needed to. The ball kicked off his wrist, allowing Olson to reach safely with one out in the fourth inning.

One pitch later, Sean Murphy hammered a Tyler Glasnow fastball to right-center field, and the Braves had a one-run lead. It was the first of Atlanta’s two hits on the night. But the way things are going for the Rays right now, it was too much to overcome.

Tampa Bay’s losing streak reached six games with a 2-1 defeat against Atlanta on Friday night before a sold-out crowd of 25,025 at Tropicana Field. This is the Rays’ longest skid in the regular season since they dropped seven straight in June 2021, and it continues a tough stretch in which they have lost nine of 14, 12 of 18 and 15 of their past 25 games.

“I really wish they could give position players losses, because Glas did not deserve a loss today,” Lowe said afterward. “It was a tough one to swallow.”

Granted, the loss could be placed upon Tampa Bay’s whole lineup, not just one player, as the bigger issue for the Rays is their ongoing team-wide slump. They have scored three runs in their past 27 innings, all on solo home runs, and they are hitless in their past 17 at-bats with runners in scoring position dating back to Wednesday night.

So it went against the Braves, who have won 26 of their past 30 games to claim the best record in baseball.

Wander Franco hit his 11th homer in the first inning off former Ray Charlie Morton, pitching at The Trop for the first time since he was part of Tampa Bay’s rotation in 2020. After that, the Rays didn’t get a runner to third base and failed to capitalize on the only three opportunities they had with a runner at second.

“[Morton was] the same guy that we saw that's been really, really good for a long time now,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “And he's running into an offense that is just not doing things that I think that we're capable of.”

Glasnow, on the other hand, continued to pitch well against a dominant Braves lineup until he was forced to exit with two outs in the sixth inning due to cramping in both hands and both legs. The big right-hander struck out eight -- with four of those coming in the second inning -- and limited the damage to Murphy’s two-run homer before reliever Elvin Rodriguez retired Atlanta’s final 10 hitters.

Glasnow couldn’t explain the cramping, which also affected him in Oakland on June 14 and at Yankee Stadium in April 2021, but he said it won’t keep him from making his next start. It’s not related to dehydration, he said, and he feels no fatigue before it sets in. Glasnow said it just felt like his left arm and calves were going to seize up, keeping him from pitching at full force.

“It's really weird. I'm hydrated, been doing the tests,” Glasnow said. “I don't know. It's just strange.”

So, too, is the dramatic drop in the Rays’ offensive production.

The first two months of the season, the Rays seemingly had too many hot hitters to fit in one lineup. Their plate discipline was unparalleled, wearing down opposing pitchers then making the most of their mistakes. They displayed a combination of power and speed that no other club could match.

But over the past 30 days, they’ve hit .247/.311/.400 with 28 homers in 27 games. They’ve stolen 28 bases during that stretch, but they’ve also been caught an MLB-leading 13 times -- including twice on Friday, when Yandy Díaz and Harold Ramírez were caught in moments that Cash acknowledged, “We should be able to steal second base in those situations.”

“I think you could probably see that at times, just everyone trying to get that big hit and trying to get the momentum moving,” Lowe said. “People understand where we're at, not playing the greatest baseball, and trying to flip a switch.”

So how do they flip the switch back, aside from getting to the All-Star break and hoping things are better after a few days off?

“Understand that it's a slump. I mean, it is what it is. You play some bad baseball. If I'm not mistaken in '19, '20 and '21, we've had our rough patches as well,” Lowe said. “It's something that happens, and [you] wake up one day and then you remember how to win ballgames. Same kind of thing when you're hitting. Sometimes you just forget how to hit. It's a humbling game.”