Indians top Rays with walk-off walk in ninth

The start of Tuesday's game was held up by a 95-minute rain delay, though it actually rained at Progressive Field for all of about five minutes. That should have been a harbinger of things to come for the Tampa Bay Rays.

What followed was an uncharacteristic 5-4 loss to the Cleveland Indians where the winning run came home in the bottom of the ninth inning on a bases-loaded walk by Kyle Farnsworth, who hadn't walked a batter all season.

Or, maybe it was just a typical night in Cleveland for the Rays, who have lost 19 of their last 21 games at Progressive Field.

"It's something in the water, man," starting pitcher Andy Sonnanstine said. "We haven't had great success here and I can't exactly tell you why. I don't know if it's something to do with the park or something to do with something, but we didn't plays as crisp as we normally do."

The loss snapped the Rays' road winning streak, which had reached a franchise-best eight games, and dropped them out of their virtual tie for first place with the Yankees.

It was the 14th straight home victory for the Indians, who began a season with 14 wins in their first 16 games for the first time in franchise history.

The walks by the Rays pitchers didn't help.

They walked 11, including five in 3 1/3 innings from Sonnanstine.

It was the third straight game a Rays starter walked five batters, and the fourth time in team history Rays starters walked at least five batters in three consecutive starts. The last time was in 2004 when Jeremi Gonzalez, Victor Zambrano and Jorge Sosa had the honors.

"The last couple of games we've been really walking way above our limits," Joe Maddon said. "We can't do that. But even having done that, we could have won that game."

Sonnanstine, who came out of the bullpen to replace the injured Jeff Niemann in the rotation, admitted he was rusty.

"A little bit," he said. "I don't think the rain delay helped, but command needs to be better. I kind of put our bullpen in a little bit of a spot having to cover those innings. I really wanted to go deeper. Other than the walks I felt I competed in some tough situations and was happy about that. But I can't remember the last time I walked five guys."

Walks aside, the Rays defense wasn't its normally crisp self either.

A run scored in the sixth when Sean Rodriguez, playing shortstop, didn't appear to get to the bag in time to receive a throw from second baseman Ben Zobrist that would have resulted in an inning-ending force out.

Rodriguez said he was not sure if Zobrist could make the play and started after the ball himself before circling back to the bag.

That play loomed large since the Indians added another run on a passed ball by John Jaso.

"They scored three runs, one on a passed ball, one on a bases loaded walk, one where we failed to cover second, so out of the five runs they scored, three we kind of given to them, and that's not our game," Maddon said.

The Rays did battle back to tie the score at 4-4 on Kelly Shoppach's pinch-hit RBI single in the seventh inning that scored Rodriguez from second and Evan Longoria's long home run to center field to leadoff the eighth.

But Joel Peralta, who entered the game in the seventh inning with runners on the corners and one out and got out of the jam by inducing the Indians to hit into their third double play of the night, allowed the first three batters he faced in the ninth to reach base after he sandwiched a four-pitch walk and an intentional walk around a single.

Farnsworth came on and, with the Rays playing with five infielders, got Orlando Cabrera to hit the ball to Reid Brignac, who had replaced Rodriguez at short. Brignac threw home to force Shin-Soo Choo at the plate.

Farnsworth ran the count full on the next batter, Michael Brantley, before walking him to end the game.

"It was a fastball. I threw it in the dirt," Farnsworth said.

It was the second time the Indians beat the Rays with a walk-off walk. The first was on Sept. 26, 2006.

Sonnanstine, who grew up less than an hour's drive from Cleveland in Barberton, Ohio, continued his struggles at Progressive Field, where he began the night 0-3 in three starts with an ERA of 10.76.

His lack of success this close to home is beginning to get annoying.

"Very," he said. "I would like to perform well in front of family and friends and a lot of people who touched my life and helped me get to where I am today. It's very frustrating. But at the end of the day I'm going to try to pull some positives out of it. We were in the game when I came out. I think our team did a great job of picking each other up and battling and making sure we were in it in the ninth."

But being in the game in the ninth inning was all the Rays could do.

"We just made some mistakes that bit us, mistakes that we don't normally make," Maddon said. "Mental mistakes got us."

NOTEWORTHY: RF Matt Joyce was 2-for-4 with a home run and an RBI doubled and took over the AL lead in batting by raising his average to .356. Joyce is batting .474 in his last 11 games … Zobrist's 14-game hitting streak came to an end … Longoria is batting .438 in his last four games with two home runs and six RBI.

rmooney@tampatrib.com

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