Because baseball will always have the last laugh, the Rays dropped a two game series against the struggling Washington Nationals. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose to Max Scherzer may be regarded as misfortune; to lose to Anibel Sanchez as well looks like carelessness.
They remain in first place in the American League East, 3.5 games ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays. I was going to start tracking magic numbers but now that they’ve dropped two games and lost ground it feels like it would bring on the evil eye. I will note that the Rays odds to win at least some playoff spot is, according to ESPN, 100%, which I guess means it’s not time to panic.