NEW YORK — Tampa Bay has been waiting patiently on 22-year-old Luis Patino to give them some length to the rotation down the stretch, but the experiment failed miserably again on Sunday when he got rocked by the New York Yankees in a 10-4 loss.
Patino gave up nine runs — all very much earned — and lasted just 1 1/3 innings. He threw 70 pitches — and only got four outs. He was wild, walking four batters, and he paid dearly for every one of them. All four scored on home runs. The Yankees tagged him for three long balls — from Gleyber Torres in the first, and Giancarlo Stanton and Oswaldo Cabrera in the second — in his shortest start of the year since coming back from an oblique injury in mid-July.
His ERA nearly doubled in one day, going from 4.34 to 8.10 on Sunday. It was his fifth start since coming off the injured list, and it was clearly his worst. He's really had only only one good start this year, pitching 5 2/3 scoreless innings against Kansas City on Aug. 18.
The loss dropped the Rays to 78-60 on the season, and they are now 5 1/2 games behind the Yankees in the American League East Race with 24 games to go. It was the second-straight blowout loss to the Yanks, and the Rays finished 8-11 in the season series.
The Rays remain in the top spot in the wild-card race, but it couldn't be any tighter. They lead the Seattle Mariners by percentage points, and the Toronto Blue Jays by a half-game. The team on the outside looking in — the Baltimore Orioles — also lost on Sunday, so the Rays are still six games clear of them, and hold the season series tiebreaker.
The Rays magic number to clinch a playoff spot 17. That's a combination of Rays victories and Orioles losses.
Tampa Bay needs to Toronto next for a huge five-game series in four days with the Blue Jays. Rays reliever Brooks Raley, who is unvaccinated, will not make the trip due to Canada's rules about unvaccinated players entering the country.
The Rays lead the season series 6-4, with nine games remaining. They'll play four games in St. Petersburg next week. That series tiebreaker could come into play for postseason seeding, too.
The Rays had 10 hits on the day and scored four runs. They got two hits from Ji-Man Choi, which is encouraging since he's been in a lengthy slump. They got an RBI single from Jose Siri in the second, and scored two runs in the sixth when they were already down 10-1. Christian Bethancourt had an RBI double and Taylor Walls had an RBI single. Choi drove in Jonathan Aranda, who had walked, in then ninth inning.
Here's what Kevin Cash had to say after the game:
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