Team’s miscues in Chicago lead Rays to fourth straight setback

CHICAGO — The Rays have enough problems they can’t seem to do much about, with a series of injuries to pitchers and a pile of cold bats in their dugout.

Saturday they lost again because of mistakes they shouldn’t be making. Misplays and missed plays in the field plus bad decisions on the bases stacked up in a 3-2 loss to the White Sox that was Tampa Bay’s fourth straight and fifth in six games since a season-opening sweep of Baltimore.

“Look, we’re 4-5 for a reason,’’ manager Kevin Cash said. “I think a lot of it is because … we haven’t been as crisp on defense, we’ve been running into outs. That is a little uncharacteristic for this club.

“But we’re going to work hard to get it right. It’s early, but that’s not an excuse. We’ve got to play better. The guys know that.’’

The silence and hung heads in the clubhouse were evidence as the defeat was very much a team effort, dropping the Rays under .500 for the first time since they were 14-15 on May 2 last year.

Kevin Kiermaier made arguably the most critical mistake as a pinch runner, getting caught breaking to third on a comebacker for the first out of the ninth after Harold Ramirez’s leadoff single off Sox closer Liam Hendriks and a wild pitch.

“Not ideal,’’ Cash said. “We’ve got to find

ways to make better decisions. Not just [Kiermaier]. We’ve had a lot [of bad decisions] lately for this early in the season that you can go back and look at and kind of scratch your head, ‘What just happened right there?’ ”

The Rays still had a chance when Brett Phillips, who earlier robbed the Sox of a homer, singled with two outs and pinch-hitter Ji-Man Choi was walked intentionally from a 3-1 count after Phillips stole second to load the bases. But Taylor Walls struck out.

It was the fifth time in the past six games the Rays scored three or fewer runs.

The strikeout capped a tough afternoon for Walls, who got his first start at his favored shortstop position with Wander Franco at DH, and he made the Rays’ most glaring defensive miscue to open the home sixth.

And that was after the Rays had tied it at 2 in the top of the sixth with Manuel Margot singling in Franco, though during the rally they lost Randy Arozarena, who was ejected for tossing his bat in reaction to a called third strike.

Walls booted a fairly routine grounder by Luis Robert, who moved up on a stolen base and a flyout, and scored the decisive run off reliever Ryan Thompson when Yasmani Grandal singled against the shift.

Cash called Walls “really, really surehanded” and said Walls would make that play the next 99 times it happened. Walls went one better and said he’d make it the next 100 times. That didn’t change what happened this time as Walls rushed the play.

“Bouncing around the infield and then actually getting to go back to short, it’s just one of those things [where] I want to make every play. I want to make every play no matter where I’m at,’’ Walls said. “When [the ball] was hit, I just kind of was a little too aggressive coming to get it. It was a pretty routine hop. If I would have been a little more patient, then it would have been a routine play.’’