ST. PETERSBURG -- After seemingly scoring at will through their first 23 games of the season, the Rays were shut out for the second straight night in a 1-0 loss to the Astros on Wednesday at Tropicana Field.

What cooled down the Majors’ hottest lineup? It’s pretty simple.

“Two good pitchers,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said.

On Tuesday night, it was Astros starter Luis Garcia in a 5-0 loss. In the series finale, it was Hunter Brown who helped extend the Rays’ scoreless streak to 19 innings.

Brown, Houston’s 24-year-old right-hander, faced only two batters over the minimum while striking out eight in seven innings. Tampa Bay managed only two walks and a pair of singles against him, both on Manuel Margot ground balls up the middle, and just one of the 21 outs Brown recorded was hit out of the infield.

“It’s a tough game,” Margot said through interpreter Manny Navarro. “I’ve never seen a team go 162-0, so it’s just one of the things that happens in this game.”

Cash noted that Brown was “pretty electric” when the Rays saw him out of the Astros’ bullpen late last season, and he said he has “probably gotten a little bit better” since then. Brown kept Tampa Bay off-balance all night with a nasty mix of sliders, curveballs and fastballs, leaning primarily on his breaking stuff over a fastball that maxed out at 97.7 mph.

The Astros were responsible for the Rays’ most recent back-to-back blankings last Sept. 19-20. Those are the only two times since the start of the 2018 season that Tampa Bay has been dealt consecutive shutouts.

The Rays were bound to slow down at some point after averaging seven runs per game through Monday night’s 8-3 victory. Garcia and Brown just brought them to a grinding halt.

“Both guys had really good stuff the last two nights. To go out there and score nine every night, it's just not going to happen,” second baseman Brandon Lowe said. “It's a long season. You're going to have patches where you don't score any runs.”

So how will the Rays adjust as they head to Chicago to begin a four-game series against the White Sox on Thursday night?

“Not change a thing,” Margot said through Navarro.

“We don't worry about it,” echoed Lowe. “When we were 13-0, it's the same kind of thing. You don't worry about what happened once we walk off the field, and you kind of wash it.”

And the Rays have every reason to feel confident in their pitching, which nearly matched the Astros zero for zero on Wednesday night.

Houston pushed across one run in the first inning against opener Calvin Faucher when Jeremy Peña singled, advanced to third on a pair of wild pitches and scored when shortstop Wander Franco couldn’t scoop Alex Bregman’s grounder.

The bright spot for the Rays was the performance of left-hander Josh Fleming. Taking the mound after Faucher’s two-plus frames, Fleming spun six efficient innings against a Houston lineup loaded with eight right-handed hitters.

Fleming allowed four hits and one walk while striking out two and inducing two double plays. The left-hander breezed through his outing on only 69 pitches, and he became just the fifth pitcher in franchise history to work at least six scoreless innings in relief in a game, the first since Ryan Yarbrough against the Marlins on Sept. 24, 2021.

“It was honestly nice to go six. That felt really good,” Fleming said. “I was coming off of a solid one in Cincinnati and have had a couple other ones pretty similar to it. And [I] just wanted to capitalize on it and keep going and keep learning.”

Over his past two outings, Fleming has pitched nine scoreless innings, needing only 104 pitches. Since allowing right-handed hitters to go 8-for-14 in his season debut against the Nationals on April 4, he has held righties to a .211 average (8-for-38) over his past four appearances.

The difference has been Fleming’s implementation of a sweeping breaking ball, an additional weapon that right-handed hitters have to account for on the inner half of the plate. His ability to throw that for strikes has opened up the outer half for him to use his sinker and changeup, and his potential when executing all three was on display Wednesday night.

“Josh was really, really good. Happy for Josh,” Cash said. “Kept it right there when he came in the ballgame, giving us every opportunity. We just couldn't get anything going offensively.”