Rays shut down Guardians again, clinch split of series with 3-1 win

CLEVELAND — The Guardians usually win when Tanner Bibee is on the mound. Friday night at Progressive Field, they reversed the trend. Offering Bibee little offensive support, Cleveland lost for the fourth time in seven games, dropping a 3-1 decision to Tampa Bay, which clinched at least a split of the four-game series. The Guardians entered the night owning a 34-19 record in Bibee's 53 career starts — posting a 20-8 record in his 28 outings this year. But this time around, the right-hander had a worthy opponent in Rays starter Zack Littell, who shut out Cleveland on two hits over six innings. The Guardians, who saw their Central Division lead whittled down to three games, managed only four hits — two after the second inning. "They know how to pitch, and they've kept us off-balance," manager Stephen Vogt said of the Rays, who improved to 4-1 against the Guardians this year, limiting them to seven runs over the five games. "They're executing their off-speed pitches, and we need to do better against them. Tampa knows how to pitch. This is five games now we've played against them where we've struggled to put runs up." Bibee entered his 29th start with a 9-6 record and 3.09 ERA over his last 20 outings since May 13, recording 122 strikeouts in 113 2/3 innings and eight quality starts during the span. He appeared headed down a similar path when he retired the first six batters he faced but ran into trouble immediately in the third on a leadoff triple from Jose Siri, followed by No. 8 hitter Logan Driscoll's first career home run to right for a 2-0 Rays lead. Jonathan Aranda took Bibee deep again with a solo shot in the fourth. "I think the second homer, I thought was a pretty decent pitch," Bibee said. "Just swung his bat out there and got it. There were a couple bloop hits but there were also some hard hits, so I'm not going to say they blooped me to death, because they hit some balls pretty hard." Bibee struck out the side twice in the third and sixth innings, whiffing nine for the game. "With the exception of the inning where they hit him pretty hard, I thought he did pretty good," Vogt said. "He stranded some runners out there. He was very efficient with his pitches. Just thought he left a couple of pitches over the middle, a couple of mistakes that they didn't miss. "I think that just shows again how Tanner's progressing and the type of pitcher that he is to get into a hole like that and to bear down and get us out of that inning and keep us in the game — six innings, three runs. We'll take that 100 out of 100 times. He did his job tonight." Bibee wasn't impressed by his strong finish. "I gave up two homers," he said. Jhonkensy Noel snapped an 0-for-19 skid with his first career triple in the second. His sinking liner to left was misplayed by Christopher Morel, and the 6-foot-3, 260-pound rookie dove head-first safely into third. Noel led off the eighth with a double and scored on pinch hitter David Fry's double to avoid the Guardians' 14th shutout loss. Cleveland challenged that Fry's drive cleared the wall for a homer but the call was confirmed and he stayed at second. "I couldn't really tell getting out of the box," Fry said. "It's kind of happened like three or four times in this series. It's kind of weird that it's happened that much. But I was looking at it on the scoreboard from second base and I couldn't really tell. Who knows?" "I can't see on the big screen," Vogt said. "It looked like it hit the very top of the wall and came back. The fact that the call was confirmed, not stands, tells me that they must have seen something in real time. I thought the trajectory of the way the ball came back onto the field it had to have hit something. Whether that goes our way or not, it's a moot point." Hours before the game, left fielder Steven Kwan was scratched from the lineup with what the Guardians called "general body fatigue." "He had some back soreness, so we sent him for some testing, and we'll know more (today)." Kwan, who has struggled mightily since the All-Star break, missed close to a month with a hamstring injury in May. Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter @CAwesomeheimer.