The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from series loss to Angels

The Good - Rays Resilience in Game 3

After the first two games of the series showed almost nothing at the plate and were slugfests for the Angels, Shane McClanahan came out dealing against Los Angeles.

McClanahan had 7 shutout innings against the high powered Angel's offense, including 13 strikeouts while only allowing 3 hits and 1 walk on the day. He managed to outduel Ohtani, who went 6 innings allowing 1 run on a Kevin Kiermaier home run in the second inning.

Although the offense was not firing on all cylinders, they managed to grind the whole game and add a second run in the 8th on a Yandy Diaz ground out to shortstop. Taylor Ward continued his impressive 2022 season, hitting his 7th homer of the year on a two run blast that tied the game off of Rays reliever Andrew Kittredge.

After heading to extra innings, Vidal Brujan wasted no time in taking the lead, hitting the first pitch he saw to center field for a go ahead double, and would later be knocked in by Harold Ramirez to give the Rays the 4-2 victory.

It was an encouraging sign for a club coming off being no hit and just outclassed in both games prior to this. Even with their ace on the mound, the club could have rolled over against Ohtani, but instead battled against him and battled to regain momentum after giving up the lead in a game they had controlled.

The Bad - No Hit in Game 2

Hard to believe being no hit in a game would not be the ugly section of this series, but just wait till we get to that part.

Game 2 of this series was all Angels, as they roughed up Corey Kluber to the tune of 8 runs on 11 hits in just 3 innings of work for the Rays starter. The Rays bullpen held the Angels in check the rest of the game, until "two-way" player Brett Phillips gave up four runs in the 8th inning.

The real story here was the no-hitter thrown by Reid Detmers during the contest. Detmers only allowed one base runner the whole game, walking Taylor Walls in the top of the 6th inning. Detmers managed to shut down the Rays while only striking out two in the outing and throwing 108 total pitches.

The Angels rookie had struggled to start the year, having only gone five innings at most through five starts this season and entering the contest with an ERA of 5.32. Detmers had it going that night though, and the Rays bats went ice cold.

The Ugly - Rendon Hitting a Left Handed Home Run

Speaking of Brett Phillips outing on the mound, the Rays outfielder gave up four runs on two home runs during his inning of work in the blowout loss. It is one thing to give up runs as a position player doing mop up duty, but its another thing to give up the kind of run Phillips did while eventually being no hit for the entire game.

Coming to the plate, fans could notice something very odd about Anthony Rendon, he was batting left handed. You do not have to be the most observant fan in the world to know that Rendon only hits from the right side, so this probably was going to be an easy out for Phillips. Instead, Rendon blasted a two run homer, and is now 1-1 with a home run from the left side of the plate during his career.

No hitters are embarrassing, but this home run was icing on that cake. You risk ugly numbers going up on the board whenever you throw an outfielder on the mound, and you are not too worried about the outcomes, but to give up that kind of home run in any moment outside of the Home Run Derby is the definition of ugly.