ATLANTA — Ryan Pepiot felt he was prepared for the challenges, both of the powerful hitters in the Braves’ lineup and the excessive heat and steamy conditions of Truist Park in the Saturday afternoon sun.
He chugged water and electrolyte tablets Friday. Did his day-before running and throwing in the 4-5 p.m. window to simulate game conditions, temperatures in the mid-90s and the feels-like approaching 100. Staked out a chair in the air-conditioned tunnel behind the dugout to sit in while his Rays teammates batted Saturday. And he had an extra jersey ready to change into if he sweated through his first.
Buoyed by his teammates scoring a run in the top of the first inning, Pepiot’s plan worked perfectly through the first four frames.
And then fell apart horribly in the fifth, with the Braves hitting three home runs in a four-batter span, sending the Rays to another frustrating defeat, this one 9-2. That was their second straight to open a 10-day trip, dropping their record to 33-38 and furthering their hold on last place in the American League East.
Worse, from Pepiot’s standpoint, were the circ*mstances for the Braves’ outburst: two outs in the inning, and two strikes on three of the four batters before falling behind
“I was just one pitch away,” Pepiot said. “Just three mistakes right there, and the big thing with all those at-bats was that I got behind all of them.
“Was it hot? Yeah. Was I gassed? I’m not going to use that excuse. I just didn’t execute pitches when I needed one more to get out of there. The guys give me a lead early and tried to keep it as long as I could and things went sideways."
Pepiot went through each at-bat in the fifth-inning barrage, which started with a leadoff walk to No. 7 hitter Sean Murphy, on a full count.
He got two outs and ahead of Jarred Kelenic 1-2, but couldn’t put him away, going to a full count, then leaving a changeup over the plate that Kelenic laced at 108.6 mph just over the 16-foot-high rightfield wall.
Things quickly got worse from there. Pepiot was ahead of Ozzie Albies 0-2, then after two fouls threw four straight balls to put him on. “0-2 walks can’t happen," Pepiot said.
Three pitches later, Marcell Ozuna blasted a fastball that was over the middle of the plate for a 423-foot homer to center. And six pitches after that, Matt Olson drove a 2-2 fastball over the rightfield fence.
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Explore all your options“Just didn’t do a good job of executing with two strikes today and with two outs,” Pepiot said. “And I let things snowball."
Manager Kevin Cash allowed that Pepiot may have been gassed but said he “threw the ball well until basically right there at the end.” But the 26-year-old right-hander said he didn’t feel his stuff was sharp and that he “got away” with some pitches in the early inning.
“I was out there grinding my way through it,” he said. “I just really didn’t do a good job of getting ahead of guys, and when I did get ahead of guys I didn’t do a good job of putting them away. Non-competitive pitches, easy takes, letting them foul off the good ones and then making mistakes and them punishing it.”
Catcher Ben Rortvedt said Pepiot was being too hard on himself.
“That’s Ryan. He’s going to feel like it’s all up to him,” Rortvedt said. “But this is a team. This is a collective effort. I’m behind the plate, I could do a better job, getting him in the zone, whatever I can do, getting him in the right place to make pitches. He’s throwing the rock, but we’re all part of it. It’s a team effort and we have to do a better job on both sides of the ball.”
That’s also a key point, as the Rays, similar to Friday’s loss, failed to make more of their first-inning rally off former teammate Charlie Morton, or add on until much later.
“Very similar to (Friday) that we’ve got to find a way to get more in there," Cash said. “But the offense is just, we’re scuffling right now."
Josh Lowe said there has been somewhat of a pattern. “It seems like we come out with our hair on fire the first inning and play our best baseball,” he said, then “it’s like we go to sleep after that” until sometimes rallying late.
“We just need to find a way to go out there and just have the at-bats like we do our first at-bat," he said, “and then hopefully build on that."
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