The Rays fell for the second straight day on the last pitch of a game. Yesterday they lost on a Ryan Ludwick homer today they lost on a walk single, 5-4. Today’s winning hit for the Cardinals was by Skip Schumaker and the loss knocked the Rays down to 25-19 on the season.
The Rays got a decent start out of Edwin Jackson who just threw too many pitches to pitch deep into the game. Jackson got through 5.1 innings, allowing only one run, however he needed 96 pitches to do so. Jackson struck out seven but walked four batters and allowed 6 hits during his outing. The Rays bullpen just didn’t get the job done today as they combined to throw three innings (5 pitchers) while giving up the final four runs of the ball game, including the game winner. Gary Glover came on in the 9th and took the loss.
The Rays led the game 4-2 after their half of the 8th inning after a Carl Crawford solo home run. Iwamura, Zobrist, and Upton each had two hits to help lead the offense. Every Rays starter (excluding Jackson) had at least one hit on the day. The offense was hurt by a double play and by striking out seven times on the afternoon.
The Rays will now head from St. Louis out west to Oakland to start a series with the Athletics on Monday night. James Shields is penciled in to start the opener. Game time on Monday is 10:05pm.
