Rays 1 Nationals 8: Bullpen implosion plus anemic offense

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that relievers are going to reliever (hat tip to our old friend JT Morgan).

It’s very very rare to find a reliever who can be effective nearly every outing across a season (let alone multiple seasons!) So for a while Garrett Cleavinger is lights out, then he has a week of stinkitude, and then he finds his stride.

And now we have Shawn Armstrong, who has mostly been pretty reliably decent for the Rays, but in the last two weeks he’s blown two saves, and then done....whatever we are calling his awful, ERA busting appearance today.

I mean, you just can’t give up six runs in a third of an inning and expect your team to have a chance. I suppose if the Rays were…