Frustrations mount for Rays: 'I shouldn't have done that'

TAMPA -- Christopher Morel swung and missed on a 96.7 mph fastball from Angels reliever Brock Burke, slammed his bat over home plate and shouted. Before he could even take a step toward the Rays’ dugout, home-plate umpire Rob Drake signaled that he had been ejected.

For many reasons, it was a pivotal moment in the Rays’ 4-3 loss to the Angels on Tuesday night at George M. Steinbrenner Field. And it was a particularly frustrating one as Tampa Bay’s losing streak reached five games.

“It can't happen,” manager Kevin Cash said. “It can’t happen.”

“After what happened, I thought about it,” Morel said through interpreter Eddie Rodriguez. “And I was like, 'Well, I shouldn't have done that.'”

First and foremost, it came during a remarkably futile stretch of scoring opportunities for the Rays.

After taking their first lead in a week by putting up three runs on four consecutive hits with nobody out in the seventh -- a Junior Caminero homer, a Jonathan Aranda single, a Morel double and a Kameron Misner triple -- the Rays didn’t capitalize on the opportunity any further.

Then the same opportunity presented itself in the eighth, as Mike Trout lost track of a José Caballero fly ball that turned out to be a triple. Pinch-hitter Curtis Mead struck out, bringing up Morel with the game now tied.

Morel took three balls to get ahead in the count then leaned back on the next pitch, a called strike over the middle of the plate. Morel watched a fifth straight pitch, a fastball that appeared to be outside the strike zone, and shouted toward Drake after it was called a strike. Morel swung through the next pitch before bashing his bat and getting tossed.

“I've been battling since the first inning, and the pitches, they were not in the zone. And I had that in my head,” Morel said through Rodriguez. “I was just trying to help the team, and I was trying to put the ball in play, and I should have done a little bit better. … After I thought [about] what I did, it was surprising for me too, because that's not who I am. That's not part of my character.”

It had been an eventful enough night for Morel before that.

In the second inning, he tracked a Kyren Paris fly ball back to the left-field wall and timed his jump well, but it landed in a fan’s glove before he could try to rob the home run. The Rays challenged, looking for fan interference, but the call was upheld and the Angels took a 2-0 lead.

Morel said he “100 percent” would have caught it.

“I felt the glove, like his glove went in my glove, too,” Morel said.

In the fourth inning, Morel lost a Travis d’Arnaud pop-up in the clouds before it dropped for a single. Shane Baz worked his way out of the situation during his seven-inning outing. In the seventh, Morel marched out of the batter’s box, broke into a trot and heaved his bat in celebration on what turned out to be an RBI double off the wall.

“The next time, I know I need to start and run right away,” he said.

After Morel was ejected, Misner was hit on the face guard of his helmet by a 98.8 mph fastball -- he remained in the game, and Cash said afterward that Misner “seems to be OK” -- then Danny Jansen flied out to strand Caballero.

The context of Morel’s ejection is also key. Caballero came off the bench to replace Caminero at third base when the Rays briefly held a lead in the top of the eighth, and Mead pinch-hit for Aranda. That left two reserves, neither an outfielder, to replace Morel: backup catcher Ben Rortvedt and just-recalled infielder Coco Montes.

The Rays moved Caballero to left and brought in Montes to take Morel’s spot in the lineup and play third base. Naturally, the ball found him in a tough spot. With one out and catcher Logan O’Hoppe on first, Taylor Ward hit a grounder to third.

Montes bobbled what would have been the inning-ending double-play ball, and by the time he picked it up, he could only get the out at first. That proved costly. The Angels replaced O’Hoppe with pinch-runner Kevin Newman, who scored the winning run from second on Luis Rengifo’s soft single to center off Pete Fairbanks.

The Rays had another chance in the ninth, getting runners to second and third with nobody out, but once again couldn’t come through against closer Kenley Jansen as they finished 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position.

“Give them credit. They moved the ball. We did not,” Cash said. “And that was the outcome of the game.”