Bush, Dyson falter late as Rangers fall to Rays

In the game that took them to the one-third mark of their season, the Texas Rangers played into extra innings Wednesday trying to push their record back to .500.

They have won 25 times with Adrian Beltre on the disabled list and 16 times with Cole Hamels on the DL.

Things could have been a lot worse.

But things would have been better if not for one of the game’s worst bullpens, and the most beleaguered reliever of them all was again in the middle of another loss.

Sam Dyson allowed a home run to Logan Morrison to start the 10th inning and a two-run shot to Derek Norris with two outs, and the Rangers were unable to overcome a blown save by Matt Bush an inning earlier as the Tampa Bay Rays rallied for a 7-4 victory.

The Rangers were an out away from pulling off a second straight win and a .500 record after the first two months of the season. Instead, they will open June with an off day Thursday at 26-28 with the sizzling Houston Astros coming to town this weekend.

They also again have to wonder what to do with Dyson.

“There’s nights that he’s gone out and the sinkers been there and the velo’s been there,” manager Jeff Banister said. “And then there have been nights when the sinker gets away from him and flatten outs. Tonight, it looked like the breaking ball on the two-run home run. It’s an extreme challenge right now.

“He’s on our staff. He’s one of our pitchers right now, and we have to find a way to continue to work.”

Austin Bibens-Dirkx was making his first major-league start after four appearances as the long man. The Rangers didn’t have him on a pitch count, but they weren’t expecting a complete game.

They knew the bullpen would take on a heavy workload, and knew the offense would need to scratch and claw for runs against Rays ace Chris Archer.

The short-start, good-bullpen, run-manufacturing win has been tough to come by so far, but the Rangers were in a position to strike on the combination.

The offense pieced together enough offense to stay in the game, scoring their first three runs on an Adrian Beltre sacrifice fly, a Jonathan Lucroy double play and an Elvis Andrus fielder’s choice.

Andrus delivered their fourth run with a clutch two-out double in the seventh. It looked as if it would be the game-winning run thanks to  3 1/3 scoreless relief innings by Jeremy Jeffress and Alex Claudio.

Bibens-Dirkx started fast, needing only six pitches in the first inning, before the Rays settled in with their approach. They saw 78 pitches over the next 3 2/3 innings and scored two in the second inning and another in the third for a 3-1 lead.

Bibens-Dirks, who spent 12 years in the minors and independent ball before his first call to the majors in early May, ended up allowing only five hits. He walked three, but fell an out shy of his goal of five innings.

That put the bullpen to work early, but Jeffress and Claudio were up to the task. Bush wasn’t.

Bush took over in the ninth and made quick work of the first two batters. Kevin Kiermaier, though, spoiled a second straight Rangers victory when he swatted the first pitch he saw into the right-field seats to tie the game.

“Kind of a little bit of shock there,” Bush said. “I’m not used to giving up home runs on my fastball, and it happened tonight. It’s a tough pill to swallow. Eventually, it will happen and it did tonight for me, but I look forward to bouncing back and getting back on track. We’re going to win some games here. I’m not worried about that.”

The Rangers, still unwilling to let Bush pitch more than an inning and with Tony Barnette, Keone Kela and Dillon Gee available only in a pinch, went to Dyson for the 10th and watched Morrison take him deep just over the left-field wall. Norris got him four batters later after an error on Pete Kozma that kept the inning alive.

Dyson, who hadn’t pitched since failing to retire any of the seven batters he faced May 24 at Fenway Park, saw his record drop to 1-6 this season.

The Rangers again were left to wonder what to do with him.

This story was originally published May 31, 2017 at 11:32 PM with the headline "Bush, Dyson falter late as Rangers fall to Rays."