Rays, Shane McClanahan get back on track in return to Tropicana Field
ST. PETERSBURG — Shane McClanahan knew his job Friday night was to stop the slide.
The Rays’ ace had contributed to the team’s “frustrating” 10-game road trip. After consecutive losses Wednesday and Thursday to the Mets, his job was to get the team going back in the right direction.
Friday night, McClanahan did his job brilliantly.
The Rays left-hander threw seven scoreless innings, striking out seven, to give the Rays enough time to scrape out a 1-0 win over the Brewers in front of 18,961 fans at Tropicana Field.
That snapped a two-game losing streak for the Rays (33-13) and improved them to 20-3 at Tropicana Field.
The Rays remain the only team in baseball without a losing streak of at least three games, and have a major league-leading eight shutouts.
Luke Raley was hit by a pitch to lead off the eighth. He stole second and advanced to third on Brewers catcher William Contreras’ throwing error to set up the winning run. Francisco Mejia made contact on a ball out of the zone with two strikes to bring Raley in on a sacrifice fly to left field.
“Frankie is really good at putting the ball in play and it’s just a pressure at-bat,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “You can’t mimic those moments at any point. So when Raley got to third base, Frankie does such a good job of putting balls in play and he knocked it to get us that big run.”
It was McClanahan’s longest start since last August, and one the Rays desperately needed. The 25-year old needed it too; he allowed a season-high four runs in a season-low four innings of work against the Yankees on Saturday in his last start.
Friday night at the Trop he was more in command.
“I think he was controlling the count a little bit more,” Cash said. “I mean, it felt like if he fell behind by one pitch, the next pitch was a strike to make sure that he wasn’t falling behind by multiple pitches. He was really convicted with throwing the ball in the zone consistently. Then when he needed to get out with two strikes, he did that very well.”
McClanahan scattered six hits and did not walk a batter. He attacked the strike zone, striking out seven and getting 15 swings-and-misses, including eight on his fastball.
“It was a little more mechanical than I wished it was,” McClanahan said of the change. “I felt a little off this entire year, trying to figure it out. This last week, me and (pitching coach Kyle Snyder) worked our tails off. It was one of those things where I just needed to do a better job of staying behind the baseball and trying to fill up the zone as opposed to trying to make quality pitches too quality, if that makes sense. Rather than dot a corner, just fill it up.
“But yeah, it was a bit of a mindset thing, too: Just be aggressive and stay aggressive.”
It was only the second time in his career he threw seven shutout innings; the other was last May against the Angels in Anaheim.
Jason Adam and Pete Fairbanks finished it with scoreless innings in the eighth and ninth.
“As a starting pitcher, that’s what you want — the opportunity to go deep in ball games,” McClanahan said. “I turned it over to two great guys in (Adam) and Pete there to finish it out. Once I see them come in the game, I’m pretty confident.”
He is also pretty confident in the Rays’ defense behind him, which helped him out a few times. Jose Siri made two terrific running-catch plays to steal extra-base hits.
“First and foremost, I want to thank Jose Siri. What a day by that guy,” McClanahan said. “Two or three, four times, whatever it was. Yeah, it was good. We did that as a team, I feel like, and we got the job done.”
Right fielder Josh Lowe’s double play, which included throwing out former Ray Willy Adames at third, got McClanahan out of a sticky second inning.
“That was a really good play,” McClanahan said. “When I was behind third base, I didn’t know where the ball was. And then I saw the umpire signal out, and I was like, ‘Yes! Fantastic.’
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