Rays' misfortune

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Nine games out of a playoff spot on Sept. 2, the Tampa Bay Rays still believed.

Despite the odds, their schedule included seven games with the wildcard-leading Boston Red Sox, and when Wade Davis stuffed them during a 7-2 win in the first of those contests Sept. 9, that belief only intensified.

Things picked up even more the next night, when reliever Cesar Ramos bailed out closer Kyle Farnsworth by getting David Ortiz to hit into a double play to end the ninth, leading to a 6-5 victory in 11 frames. In all the Rays went 6-1 in those head-to-head matchups and pulled within two games of the collapsing Red Sox, pushing the team and its fans into a state of panic.

"I'm certain it sent some type of message to them, or caused some pause on their side, I would think," said Rays manager Joe Maddon. "But beyond that, when you know your starters are hurt, that's the one that causes sleepless nights more than anything. If you're not hitting a little bit, that's not easy but you can work through it if you're pitching the ball and catching it on defence. …

"But man, when you don't pitch, it's hard to score that many runs every night, it's just hard to be consistently good if your rotation is in a state of flux, which theirs is."

But since those games came to an end, the Rays have stopped making up ground, following up a lost week in New York, where they dropped three of four to the Yankees, with a 5-1 loss Friday night to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Already in need of help to complete their unlikely comeback, the Rays (86-71) fell 2½ games back of the Red Sox, who were rained out in New York and will play a doubleheader Sunday. The loss also lifted some of the heat off Boston, a dreadful 5-16 so far this month.

"You always want to playing for playoff hopes and all those things but it's fun to win no matter what," said second baseman Kelly Johnson, who homered, singled and drove in a pair. "We're playing against a lot of teams that are desperate to win and we're doing all right. That's definitely encouraging."

An overpowering Brandon Morrow threw seven shutout innings while the Blue Jays (80-77) secured the victory by slapping around nemesis David Price before 18,093 at Tropicana Field.

They did so a night after helping Maddon's squad with a 4-3 win in 12 innings over the Los Angeles Angels, knocking them a game behind the Rays in the wildcard chase.

"We're good with that stuff," Maddon quipped before the game, stressing how his team needed to win all six of its remaining games but to take things one day at a time.

Now winning out is even more pressing.

Price, 9-1 with a 2.19 ERA in 12 career games versus the Blue Jays coming in, set up a three-run third by throwing away a couple of outs, his second error allowing the first two runs of the game to come home.

Johnson's RBI single later on cashed in a third run and the damage would have been worse had Jose Bautista not been thrown out at second for the final out of the frame before Eric Thames could cross the plate.

Thames added an RBI single in the fifth and Johnson ripped a solo shot in the sixth off Price (12-13), who allowed five runs, two earned, in six innings of work.

"His command wasn't as sharp as we've seen against us in the past, he's been dominant against us," said Jays manager John Farrell. "The one inning that got extended because of the two throwing errors - you get into a 25-30 pitch inning and that's going to show up at some point later in the game."

Morrow (11-11), meanwhile, overcame some early wildness to dice through the Rays on two hits and four walks in a second straight strong outing since adjusting his approach on the mound. He's now thrown 15 straight scoreless innings after eight shutout frames against the Yankees in his last time out, becoming more effective by upping his effort level on every pitch rather than pacing himself.

"That's definitely the approach I'll be taking from here on out," said Morrow. "The last couple of games have kind of proven that's what I need to do. I keep saying just be aggressive on every pitch and when you take a little off, it just makes your breaking pitches a little bit sloppier and give them a better chance to hit the fastball."

His first six outs Friday came via the strikeout and that ran up his pitch count to 48 through two innings, but he became more efficient afterwards, even escaping the fifth inning with a double play, his first since Aug. 28, 2010 versus Detroit, a span of 173.1 innings.

Ace Ricky Romero doused him with water when he came to the dugout afterwards.

"I knew about (the drought)," said Morrow, who had nine twin-kills last year. "It's kind of amazing that nobody just rolled over on a pitch, or got jammed, or just hit a rocket at somebody, not to just luck into one. Weird I guess."

Put all together, it made for another night of spoiler's work for the Blue Jays, and another night of ill-timed misfortune for the Rays, who know they can only expect so much help from the Yankees.

"Straight up," Maddon said when asked how he thought the Yankees would play out the string. "Joe Girardi is going to definitely work it to his own advantage. If it was reversed we'd be doing the same thing, no question. Whatever they choose to do we have nothing to complain about, we put ourselves in this position, we're fighting back."

A fight that's a little bit more uphill because of the Blue Jays.

Shi Davidi is the MLB Insider for sportsnet.ca. Come back to read his insight and opinion regularly.