Rangers Lose To Rays

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Tampa Bay Rays aren’t playing any more October baseball, but they continue to have success in the month.

The Rays scored twice in the 10th inning to beat the Texas Rangers 6-4 on Sunday. The win ended the season for the Rays, who are now 20-13 in October regular-season games.

The Rangers still have plenty of October baseball to go. Despite the loss, Texas will have home-field advantage throughout the postseason as they host Baltimore or Toronto in the American League Division Series starting Thursday.

They should be well rested as the Rangers used 15 position players and seven pitchers Sunday.

It was the seventh Rangers pitcher than the Rays had the most success against. Richie Shaffer, Alexei Ramirez and Curt Casali each had hits to start the 10th inning off Tanner Scheppers (1-1). Shaffer scored on a wild pitch and Ramirez came around to score on Casali’s double as the Rays won the season series 4-2.

“It was a good win on the last day,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said. “Long game, back and forth, but a nice win. I’m happy with our fight (this year) but not the performance. There’s a big difference between having fight and going out and

performing and getting it done. We’ve got to get better at that. We have every intention of that. We will.”

The 10th-inning rally came against Scheppers, who is fighting for a postseason roster spot with the club. He hadn’t allowed a run in his last four outings before Sunday.

“They got base hits and I lost,” Scheppers said. “Up until today I had pitched good. It just didn’t work out today.”

Erasmo Ramirez, the 14th pitcher in the game, picked up his second save of the season.

Texas forced extra innings on Hanser Alberto’s single off Alex Colome (2-4) in the ninth.

Tampa Bay finished with 13 hits. Ramirez matched a career high with four and Logan Forsythe, Shaffer and Casali each had two on a back-and-forth Sunday.

“Something we’ve talked about it so many times is just inconsistency,” said Rays third baseman Evan Longoria, who went 1-for-5 with a run. “But it was nice to finish with a win today. We gave up the lead late and came right back in the next inning and picked up a couple runs.”

The Rays led 2-0 in the third and 3-1 in the fourth after an infield single from Luke Maile.

The Rangers cut the lead to 3-2 on Jonathan Lucroy’s homer in the bottom of the fourth, but the Rays got that run back in the seventh on an RBI single from Ramirez. The single snapped a scoreless-inning streak for the Texas bullpen at a club-record 35 1/3 innings.

The Rays couldn’t hold the lead, though, as Brad Boxburger walked four batters in the eighth, with his walk of Jurickson Profar forcing in a run.

While the Rays stuck with their starting lineup throughout the game, the Rangers used 15 players as they subbed out their regulars.

Texas starter Martin Perez allowed three runs in three innings. Tampa Bay starter Chase Whitley was charged with two runs in four innings.

Texas manager Jeff Banister didn’t let Sunday put a damper on a 95-win regular season in which the Rangers fell one win short of matching the franchise high.

“Obviously, I’m extremely proud of our guys, all of them, what they poured into the regular season, starting back during the offseason, starting back at the last game of the season last year, how we walked away, and the implications that that had and how these guys have responded to that, and then entering spring training, the focus on competing,” he said. “That was our focus, that we were going to compete in everything and every situation.”

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