Taj Bradley has another bad night as Rays lose to Astros

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Something is different about Taj Bradley.

The results make that clear, as Monday’s outing in the Tampa Bay Rays’ 6-1 loss to Houston was his third straight rough performance after a dazzling nine-start streak.

Now he and the Rays have to figure out what to do about getting him back to his previous form.

Over nine starts from June 8-July 25, Bradley was 5-1 with a majors-best 0.82 ERA, allowing five earned runs over 55 innings, giving up 31 hits (three homers) to 211 batters, striking out 65 and walking 18.

In three starts since, he is 0-3, 9.64, giving up 21 hits (and four homers) to 70 batters, striking out 15 and walking six.

The loss dropped the Rays to 59-59 — their 27th time at .500 this season — and, pending later results, kept them at least 5 1/2 games back of the third American League wild-card spot.

Going into Monday’s game, Rays officials said Bradley’s results over the previous two outings were simply the result of a few bad pitches and some easy-to-correct issues, such as falling behind in too many counts and not locating his fastball and splitter as well as he had been.

Bradley got off a decent start Monday, retiring six of the first seven Astros — although he allowed a homer to No. 2 hitter Alex Bregman.

But things turned worse quickly in the third. Bradley stumbled and landed awkwardly during one of his pitches to the first Houston hitter of the inning, Chas McCormick, and he didn’t seem able to get back in a rhythm, allowing four two-out runs.

McCormick walked, No. 9 hitter Pedro Leon flied out, Jose Altuve singled and then Bregman struck out, leaving two on with two outs.

The Astros struck quickly from there.

Bradley allowed a first-pitch single to Yordan Alvarez that scored one run, then on the next pitch, a misplaced cutter, a three-run homer to Yainer Diaz.

On the plus side for the Rays, No. 2 hitter Dylan Carlson singled in the first inning to eliminate any chance of Houston starter Framber Valdez outdoing his last outing, when he threw 8 2/3 innings of no-hit ball against the Texas Rangers.

The Rays managed three hits over 5 2/3 innings off Valdez — including two extra-base hits by Taylor Walls — and four for the night.

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