TAMPA -- After a brief rain delay on Tuesday night, sixth-inning misfortune poured all over the Rangers, who allowed a tight game to come apart at the seams in a 5-1 defeat against the Rays at Steinbrenner Field.
Trailing 1-0 in the sixth, the Rangers allowed a decisive three-run blitz, even though the Rays hit just one ball out of the infield.
“That was an ugly sixth inning,’’ Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said.
Right-hander Tyler Mahle was the hard-luck loser, but it was lefty reliever Jacob Latz who ignited the Rays. On his first pitch -- bases loaded, nobody out -- Latz sailed it over the head of catcher Kyle Higashioka and Yandy Diaz slid home from third base. Bochy said the ball slipped from Latz’s grasp.
Jonathan Aranda scored on the front end of a double-steal, and Jake Magnum collected what was scored an RBI single when Rangers first baseman Jake Burger fumbled the bouncer and couldn’t make a play anywhere.
“The wild pitch set things up and took away the force [play],’’ Bochy said. “We had a little dribbler we wouldn’t field. The ball gets out of the infield one time and we give up [three] runs. That hasn’t happened very often. Things just unraveled there for us.’’
The Rangers, who had been shut out in two of their previous four games and managed just four singles overall, got on the board with Burger’s seventh-inning RBI hit. Otherwise, Rays starter Drew Rasmussen, who allowed one hit in five innings with no walks and eight strikeouts, and the bullpen helpers were mostly lights-out.
“You just try to battle and put the ball in play,’’ Bochy said. “[Rasmussen] made some great pitches. He has great stuff and he has been pitching well. That is a lot of strikeouts, and we’re working it, doing a better job of putting the ball in play.’’
The Rays took a 1-0 second-inning lead on a bizarre home run by Kameron Misner. The ball was lifted to left field, where Wyatt Langford completely lost sight of it. He extended his arms in puzzlement as the ball dropped over the fence, just inside the foul pole, for a 328-foot homer. There was a crew-chief review, but the homer was confirmed.
“I just lost it, not in the lights, but in the twilight,’’ Langford said. “I never saw it. I couldn’t see it on the replay, either. But I heard it. Something behind me went, ‘Whack!’ So I guess it was a home run.’’
“I guess [Misner] hit it in exactly the right spot,’’ Bochy said. “I couldn’t see. That’s why I asked for an umpire review. We couldn’t tell where it went and, of course, our replay couldn’t see it, either. I thought it was foul. But I guess it stayed fair, just by a couple of feet, and left the ballpark.’’
With heavy rains in the area, there was a 17-minute delay in the third inning, still an unusual occurrence for the Rays, who were forced out of their indoor home at Tropicana Field this season due to hurricane damage. But it was only a brief hiccup -- and a prelude to the Rangers’ damaging sixth inning.
The Rangers (29-32 overall) fell to 9-19 on the road.
“We’ve got to win some games on the road,’’ Bochy said. “We’ve got to get better. That’s our focus.’’