ST. PETERSBURG -- The Rays knew they were going to have their work cut out for them Monday night against Tigers ace Tarik Skubal.

Sure enough, Skubal didn’t make it easy for the Rays’ struggling lineup. They didn’t make it easy for themselves, either.

“For a team that's trying to get their offense going, which we are, he's probably not the guy that you want to face,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said.

The Rays were flummoxed at the plate all night and made a few costly misplays in the field, and starter Zack Littell had a strange night in a 7-1 loss to the Tigers before a crowd of 13,522 at Tropicana Field. The defeat dropped the Rays to 1-7 in series openers this season, and back to .500 overall for the first time since they were 6-6 on April 9.

The Rays have more overarching offensive concerns, having scored four runs or fewer in six consecutive games, but they aren’t alone in being shut down by Skubal. He was getting preseason American League Cy Young Award buzz for a reason.

The 27-year-old lefty entered Monday’s series opener leading the American League in FIP (2.20) while ranking second to Yankees' starter Gerrit Cole in both WHIP (0.88) and opponents’ batting average (.190), third behind Seattle's Luis Castillo and Minnesota's Pablo López in strikeouts (128) and third behind Cole and Baltimore's Grayson Rodriguez in ERA (2.68) since his 2023 season debut on July 4.

The Detroit left-hander has pitched well against Tampa Bay in past meetings (a career 1.04 ERA in four career starts against the club, including Monday) and hasn’t lost a start overall since last Aug. 29.

He lived up to his reputation.

Skubal was virtually untouchable, even against a lineup stacked with nine right-handed hitters. The Rays managed only three hits off him, all singles. They struck out nine times against him (and 12 times total on the night) without working a walk. He ran his sinker up to 98.6 mph, but also generated multiple swinging strikes on his changeup, slider and four-seam fastball.

“I mean, it's really good stuff. Pretty electric fastball and then the mix of the other pitches,” Cash said. “Everything goes off the fastball. It's very, 'Here it is. Hit it,' and we didn't do that tonight.”

While Skubal was as-advertised, Littell had an unusual outing. Put together his combination of efficiency (86 pitches in six innings), strike-throwing (64 of the 86 pitches, or 74.4%), strikeouts (a season-high-tying seven), walks (zero) and swing-and-miss stuff (15) usually makes for a good night for the right-hander.

Instead, Littell gave up six runs (five earned) -- one more than he allowed in his first four outings of the year combined -- on a season-high nine hits in the Rays’ sixth loss this season by at least six runs, only two fewer than they had all of last season.

The Tigers were aggressive early in the count and swung at 47 of Littell’s 86 pitches. He gave up two homers, doubling his season total entering the night: a solo shot to Mark Canha on a 1-0 sinker in the first inning and another to Parker Meadows on a 2-0 slider in the sixth.

“I think the scouting report's out now that I'm going to be in the zone,” Littell said. “Definitely put some good swings on good pitches as well as some balls left over the middle of the zone that just can't happen.”

The Rays’ defense didn’t help much, either, as Detroit put up two runs in the second and two more in the fifth. With Matt Vierling at second after a leadoff double in the second inning, Javier Báez smoked a first-pitch sinker to center field. Jose Siri’s throw home was too late to stop Vierling from making it a 2-0 game, and Báez alertly advanced to second.

The next batter, Jake Rogers, hit a ground ball to José Caballero, who made a spinning throw to first base. The ball bounced in and out of Yandy Díaz’s glove, and Báez -- running hard the whole way with two outs -- scored from second.

Caballero committed his second error in the fifth. With two on and nobody out, Riley Greene slapped a grounder to the shortstop. Caballero looked like he wanted to turn two, but second baseman Curtis Mead was shifted well off the bag for the left-handed-hitting Greene.

Caballero pivoted to throw to first, but fired offline. Díaz dropped the ball; his throw home was too late, then Rogers aggressively took third, putting him in position to score on Canha’s subsequent single to left.

“I wanted to make an out and I kind of had to redirect the throw,” Caballero said. “And I also made a bad throw again.”