Tampa Bay Rays eliminated from playoff contention with loss to Seattle Mariners

ST. PETERSBURG — The who and where and when were purely incidental, the Rays with Tuesday's 4-3 loss to the Mariners officially eliminated from returning to the postseason.

But the how was worth noting, the Rays losing like they did so often during the lost season: good-but-not-great starting pitching, inefficient and insufficient offense and the bullpen giving it up at the end.

"We've played that script before," manager Joe Maddon said. "It just hasn't worked for us."

The key scenes this time: Get a decent start from Jeff Niemann, waste early scoring opportunities, battle back to tie at 3 in the sixth, fall behind when Dan Wheeler gives up a one-out homer in the eighth to Jose Lopez, come up short at the end.

"You hang a pitch like that, you don't expect them to come back," Wheeler said. "Over the last couple weeks, it just seems like that one bad pitch that we make, it seems to get hit and it's at a bad time of the game."

The Rays should know: It was the 10th time since the Aug. 7 start of their tailspin they gave up a homer from the eighth inning on that tied the score or dropped them behind.

So should Wheeler: It was his career-high-tying 11th this season, and his 32nd over the past three, more than any reliever.

The loss and the official elimination weren't all that made for a bad night before 12,514.

Niemann failed for the fifth time to get an apparently unlucky 13th win, though it certainly hasn't been all his fault. Tuesday, without his best stuff or sharp command, he kept the Rays in the game, working into the seventh allowing three runs, including an uncharacteristically long homer to Ichiro Suzuki.

"I felt good tonight," Niemann said. "It's late September, that's really about all I can say."

Still, the static record — he's 12-6 with a 3.81 ERA — is likely to cost him votes in what looks to be a splintered American League rookie of the year field.

So the team that won 97 games and an AL East title, then ousted the White Sox and the Red Sox on the way to the World Series, is officially eliminated with a 77-74 mark. Instead of preparing for the playoffs, as they were this time last season, the Rays are waging a different battle: trying to win five of their final 11 games to ensure a winning record.

"We had a good season," veteran Carl Crawford said. "Hopefully we'll still finish with a winning record. We had our opportunities, and we let it slip. Hopefully we learn from it and come back next year and compete.

"It's disappointing because the expectations were so high in spring training. We didn't do what we set out to do, but we still got some good things out of it."

The Rays have known for weeks they were done, as Wheeler said, knowing "it would have taken a minor miracle, or a major one at that."

Maddon praised their attitude and their effort even at this stage but also acknowledged the disappointment.

"I'm really not the symbolic kind of guy, but, believe me, it's annoying and it's not the way we wanted this year to end," he said. "Even a month ago, we were so close to getting over the hump, and we just were unable to do so. But — but I like the way everybody's hanging together. There's a lot of lessons to be learned through negative experiences also."

Well, they should be plenty smart then.

Marc Topkin can be reached at topkin@sptimes.com