Two teams battling to keep their American League wild-card hopes alive will turn to starting pitchers in the midst of long winless streaks Wednesday afternoon when the Tampa Bay Rays face the Los Angeles Angels in the rubber game of their three-game series in Anaheim, Calif.
Rays right-hander Shane Baz (8-8, 4.79 ERA), who has lost five consecutive starts and has a six-start winless streak, will oppose left-hander Tyler Anderson (2-7, 4.49), who has gone a team-record 18 starts in a row without a win.
Tampa Bay, which has lost nine of its last 10 series, is 10-24 in its last 34 games. Still, the Rays are a half-game ahead of the Angels in the wild-card race and 4 1/2 games behind the New York Yankees for the final berth following a 7-3 victory over the Angels on Tuesday night.
Los Angeles, trying for its first playoff berth since 2014, is five games behind the Yankees.
Baz is 0-0 with a 2.57 ERA in one career start against the Angels. That came on April 8 in Tampa when he allowed two runs on three hits in seven innings while striking out six in a 4-3 loss. Anderson, who last picked up a win on April 18 against San Francisco, is 2-0 with a 4.67 ERA in three career starts against the Rays.
Baz’s last victory came on June 26 at Kansas City when he scattered three hits over eight innings while striking out nine in a 4-0 victory. Since then he has had a no decision in a 4-3 loss to the Athletics on July 1 followed by five straight losses at Detroit, at Boston, home against the White Sox, at Cincinnati and Friday night against the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-0.
Baz gave up all five Dodgers runs on eight hits in five innings. Freddie Freeman homered, doubled and drove in three runs for Los Angeles, and Shohei Ohtani added two hits and a run.
“I felt like my stuff was really good, but I also felt like I was behind in the count a lot,” said Baz, who finished with eight strikeouts.
The Rays bounced back from a 5-1 loss to the Angels on Monday to even the series with the 7-3 win on Tuesday night thanks to a seven-run fourth inning that was highlighted by a two-run home run from Brandon Lowe and a two-run single by Jake Mangum. Ryan Pepiot, who started the game by throwing four perfect innings, picked up the win to snap a personal five-start winless streak.
All seven runs came off Angels starter Jose Soriano, who entered the fourth with a no-hitter. But Tampa Bay opened the inning with five consecutive hits.
“The first three innings, (Soriano’s) stuff was as good as we’ve seen all year, and me personally, I expected that to just kind of continue,” Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery said. “Low pitch count. I think he threw 30 to that point. And then he threw 35 in that inning.”
“We did a lot of good things in that inning,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said. “We showed our speed, created some havoc on the bases, had some good at-bats. It started with Yandy (Diaz) getting on base and then B-Lowe with the two-run homer, and then a bunch of guys to turn the lineup over and score seven runs. … We needed an inning like that.”
The Angels’ Jo Adell went 2-for-4 with a home run and three RBIs. Adell has four of his 23 homers this season in four games against the Rays.
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