ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. _ It would have to take something really unusual or somewhat confrontational to take away from the way the Rays played and _ led by Nathan Eovaldi _ pitched in beating the Nationals and ace Max Scherzer, 1-0, on Tuesday.
And the Rays came up with some of both in rolling to an impressive fifth straight win that, somehow, moved them back within a game of .500 at 39-40.
For odd, there were the Rays making shifting looking passe by moving reliever Jose Alvarado to first base for a batter in the ninth inning so he could return to the mound and face two more lefties.
For controversial, there was Rays reliever Sergio Romo sparking a benches- and bullpen-clearing scuffle after the final out to address disrespect he felt from Nationals outfielder Michael A. Taylor from three week earlier.
"This was pretty interesting," Rays manager Kevin Cash said. "A good one. It's so tough to win 1-0. You've got to do everything right. And we did just enough of that."
There was that, too.
The Rays struck quickly for a run against the stingy Scherzer. Kevin Kiermaier led off the game with a single. Matt Duffy singled to cap a 10-pitch at bat to get Kiermaier to third. And rookie Jake Bauers got him in with a right-side grounder.
And ... that was it, with not even another hit off Scherzer until the seventh.
"It's not the best feeling when you get one run in the first and you realistically are saying that might be all you get, how do you navigate the rest?" Cash said.
How? You just let Eovaldi run out there, mixing in the splitter he had been lacking with the cutter and high-octane fastball, to out-duel Scherzer.
Eovaldi held the Nationals hitless into the sixth, then turned it over to the bullpen brigade of Diego Castillo, Alvarado, Chaz Roe and Romo.
But these are the Rays, the team of doing things differently, most recently with a two-man rotation supplemented by game openers and bullpen days. So there had to be a twist.
And it came in the ninth, when Alvarado took over to face, and then walk, Nationals lefty Bryce Harper.
With no other lefty short reliever, given Jonny Venters' injury, and two more lefties lurking in the Nationals' lineup after righty Anthony Rendon, Cash went to something that had been in their playbook for a while but only talked about until Tuesday.
He approached home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez, asking for patience and guidance as he explained what he wanted to do, bringing in Roe to pitch (and bat fifth), with Alvarado moving to first and Bauers to left field.
The next conversation on the mound to explain it to Alvarado and the other players didn't go quite as smoothly.
"Pretty shocked," Cash said. "Obviously there's a language barrier. The best look was Wilson Ramos, (looking) at me like I had two heads. I said, 'Just shut up and explain it to him. You can make fun of me later on.' "
The plan was simple, for Alvarado "to just go stand on the bag and kind of stay out of the way."
Bauers gave him his glove and simple additional advice: "Catch the ball if someone throws it to you."
Yet the stakes were high, especially in a 1-0 game. The Rays gambled that Harper didn't take a big lead to prompt a pickoff throw or just steal second, that Rendon wouldn't drop a bunt, hit it to Alvarado or to Bauers.
"At the beginning I was saying, what's going on here?" Ramos said. "But then I was like, that's a good idea."
It was a good idea only because it worked, and, as Cash said, "to a degree."
The Rays won the initial gamble, as the Nationals didn't force any action and Roe got Rendon swinging for a huge strikeout.
"(Cash) pulled a little Joe Maddon move right there," Roe said. "With two lefties coming behind Rendon and Venters on the shelf, I thought it was a good move. It didn't work out to our favor, but it worked out in the end."
That's because Alvarado, who looked to be enjoying the assignment, grabbing Bauers' glove and even giving chase to a foul pop-up, returned to the mound unscathed (though he declined after the game to talk to reporters) to face lefties Juan Soto and Daniel Murphy. Normalcy seemed returned, as Bauers went back to first and Carlos Gomez to the outfield.
But Alvarado gave up a pair of soft singles, and suddenly the Nationals had the bases loaded with one out.
That's when Cash summoned Romo, who first settled the game by getting Trea Turner to fly out and Taylor swinging at strike three. Then Romo settled a score by telling Taylor what he thought of him stealing third with a 9-2 lead in the sixth inning of the June 6 game, leading to the benches emptying but nothing more than some mild pushing and shoving.
Romo's take on the events of the whole day?
"I thought it was really fun," he said. "We won 1-0 against a really good team. That's pretty awesome."
That's one way to put it.
