Up And Down Rays Get Blanked 1-0 In Season Finale With Astros

HOUSTON, Texas — Considering how much the Houston Astros have owned the Tampa Bay Rays the pst half-dozen years or so, finishing a four-game set on the road with a split and winning the season series has to feel good for the Rays.

But how it all played out was the ultimate head-scratcher for a team that's been playing its best baseball of the year the past two weeks. The series ended with a 1-0 Houston victory on Sunday at Diakan Park, with Hunter Brown pitching six scoreless innings and allowing just one hit, though he had to work around four walks.

The Rays only had two hits all day, and had just three hits in a 2-1 loss to the Astros on Friday. It makes no sense, considering they scored 13 runs on Thursday and 16 more in a win on Saturday.

Dr. Jekyll, meet Mr. Hyde.

The Rays leave town with a 30-29 record, and head home for a six-game homestand that starts Tuesday night, with three games against the Texas Rangers followed by three more with the Miami Marlins.

They'll be glad to get home, since they're 7-1 in their last eight games at Steinbrenne Field. But which offense will we see, the one that scored 29 runs in two wins, or the one that only got five hits and one run in the two losses?

Sunday was frustrating because the Rays wasted another terrific start from Taj Bradley, the unlucky loser. He pitched seven innings and only allowed three hits and one unearned run in the first inning.

It might have been the strangest inning of the year. Houston leadoff hitter Jeremy Pena hit a ball to Junior Caminero on the first pitch, but he made an error and Pena wound up on second base. Isaac Paredes and Jose Altuve were first-pitch swinging too, but they popped up to short and grounded out to third. Christian Walker hit the first pitch he saw into left field for a single, making it 1-0, and the catcher Yainer Diaz lined out to center to end the inning.

Five batters, five pitches — and the inning was over. That was also the end of the scoring. The unearned run made the difference.

“We need to convert that out somehow,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said.

Bradley, who's gone seven innings in his last two starts and has two losses despite only allowing a combined two earned runs, threw 104 pitches and was still strong at the end, retiring the last eight batters he faced, with four strikeouts. He had 10 strikeouts, his first double-figures K game since September 2024.

But the Rays offense couldn't help him out. They got two walks from Brown in the third inning, but couldn't score. In the sixth, new catcher Matt Thaiss walked and Josh Lowe got the Rays' first hit of the game off of Brown. But Brandon Lowe struck out looking and Yandy Diaz hit into a double play.

Lowe went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, snapping his career-high 13-game hitting streak. Brown is now 8-3 with a 1.83 earned run average, and has 10 quality starts, best in the majors. His only bad start was on May 21 against the Rays in Tampa, when he gave up five runs in five innings.,

The Rays had been pummeling Houston relievers during their 4-3 season series win, but they no answers for Bryan King, Bryan Abreu and Josh Hader, who covered the final three innings and allowed just one combined hit.

The biggest drama was in the ninth inning, when shortstop Taylor Walls complained about a low pitch that called a strike, and his interactions with umpire Nic Lentz

Walls tapped the top of his helmet, and Lentz took as showing him up by using the sign to review a strike call like they did in spring training. Walls said he didn't do that on purpose, and there was a misunderstanding.

Taylor Walls was ejected from the game after tapping his helmet.

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“That's what he told me. 'You're not going to do that. You're not going to tap your helmet,' '' Walls told reporters after the game. "And so at that point, like, I know that they think that's disrespectful. I watched the video, and I could see where he may have thought that.

“But I think, like, the context clues around it -- I'm looking at him and my body language is saying, like, 'Dude, I didn't hear what you're saying.' I didn't say anything to him leading up to this. If I'm gonna tap my helmet, I'm not gonna do it while I'm looking at you, asking you a question, trying to understand what you're telling me.”

Walls was ejected and Christopher Morel came in for him, and promptly struck out against Hader for the second out in the inning. Hader struck out Caminero to end the game.

Winning the series against the Astros is a big deal, though. It's the first time they've done it since 2019 and it also might come into play in a wild-card tiebreaker at the end of the season. That's a long way off, of course, but it's worth filing away.