PHILADELPHIA — Not everything is going the Rays’ way.
On Wednesday, for example, their now standard late-inning rally against the Phillies wasn’t enough, as reliever Collin McHugh, who hadn’t given up hardly anything in months, gave up the lead in the eighth.
So the Rays just rallied again in the ninth, then beat the Phillies, 7-4.
Yandy Diaz got them started in the ninth with a leadoff single off starter Zack Wheeler. Kevin Kiermaier then sliced a ball just inside the third-base line for a double. And Francisco Mejia, again showing his knack for clutch hits, delivered a big one; a three-run homer into the second deck.
The win was the Rays’ fourth straight and eighth in nine games, improving their American League-best record to 79-48 and extending their East Division lead to 4 1/2 games over the idle Yankees.
The Rays had a 4-3 lead going to the bottom of the eighth and the ball in the hand of McHugh, the most dependable reliever in their bullpen and maybe the league.
But with two outs, after an infield single and a snazzy 6-5-3 double play from a shifted defense, he did something he hadn’t done since May 24, allow an earned run, having gone 17 games, and 33 2/3 innings without.
But that changed when he left a 1-0 slider over too much of the plate, and Rhys Hoskins knocked it over the left-field wall.
As on Tuesday, the Rays took the lead in the eighth.
Wander Franco got them started with a soft liner that diving second baseman Jean Segura couldn’t grab. With Franco breaking for second, Joey Wendle delivered a hit-and-run single to right.
A broken-bat slow roller by Randy Arozarena was enough to get Franco home.
The Phillies grabbed an early lead against Rays starter Ryan Yarbrough, though it wasn’t all his fault. Yarbrough allowed a single to Andrew McCutchen and a walk to Freddy Galvis.
Ronald Torreyes then grounded a ball up the middle that somehow rolled untouched between second baseman Brandon Lowe and shortstop Franco.
Lowe started for it, then adjusted course to cover second, apparently thinking Franco would make the stop and flip him the ball. But Franco also stopped, and the ball went by both. That loaded the bases, and the Phillies got a run when Luke Williams grounded into a 5-4-3 double play.
Shut down for three innings by Wheeler, the Rays took the lead in the fourth. This time, they got some help.
Franco led off with a double, extending his on-base streak to 26 games, matching Hall of Famer Al Kaline for fourth longest among American Leaguers 20 or younger.
Wendle lined a ball to left that McCutchen botched, allowing Franco to score. A Diaz single with two outs scored Wendle to give the Rays the lead.
They extended it to 3-1 in the fifth when Lowe hit a two-out home run, his seventh in his past 17 games and his 30th overall for the season.
Manager Kevin Cash said before the game that they decided to start Yarbrough, rather than have him pitch behind an opener, in part to get him stretched back out. That was because he threw only 70 pitches over five innings in his Aug. 18 return to the mound, having been sidelined about 10 days after a positive COVID-19 test.
But when Yarbrough allowed a single to Wheeler to start the fifth on his 55th pitch of the game, Cash decided that was enough, as the left-hander had allowed five hits and two walks, and had no strikeouts.
That turned out to be a bad move. Reliever Shawn Armstrong got a ground-ball out and a strikeout, then allowed a long and loud two-run tying homer to center by Bryce Harper.
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