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

The Tampa Bay Rays (19-13) dropped 2 of 3 games on the road against the Los Angeles Angels (21-12) this week. Both teams have been off hot starts in 2022, but if you have not been following these teams this year, this series would have made you believe the Angels were World Series contenders while the Rays were bottom feeders in the American League. Fans even got a taste of the leagues two premier two way players pitching and hitting against one another in Shohei Ohtani and Brett Phillips.

The series began with an 11-3 route of the Rays, where the ballclub remained competitive up until the Angels broke the game open in the 6th inning. The Angels then continued their beatdown of Tampa in game two, where they took a 12-0 victory powered by a no-hitter from rookie Reid Detmers. The Rays bounced back to claim the third and final game of the set 4-2, showing resilience and competitiveness with one of the American League's strongest contenders at the moment. The Angels now sit a half game back of first place in the AL West while the Rays currently trail the Yankees in second place by four games.

Every team has bad series, and some times your worst games come against teams playing at their best, which seems to be the case with the Rays and Angels in this series. Over the course of this season, we will dissect each series the Rays play in and look at the "Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" from the Tampa ballclub and what takeaways can be had from this team.

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 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.