Defeat puts finishing touch on bad day

This was the night the A’s could have used a raucous celebration on the field, a bacchanal of wearable Gatorade and shaving-cream pies. Or maybe a beer shower in the clubhouse for a kid earning his first big-league win. Either would have put a happy spin on a very bad FriOakland day.

The A’s had no more heroics up their sleeves. A day that began with pitcher Frankie Montas’ 80-game suspension for a positive drug test ended in a 5-3 loss to the Rays.

A night after Matt Chapman earned the Gatorade bath with his three-run, walk-off homer, Friday’s rally fell short.

trailed 4-2, held to solo homers by Matt Olson and Ramon Laureano, when Chapman and Olson hit doubles off different pitchers to start the eighth inning and make it a 4-3 game.

But the Rays stranded Olson, with Chaz Roe getting two outs and Oliver Drake the third. Tampa Bay then

tacked on a run against Lou Trivino in the ninth when Brandon Lowe hit a two-out RBI double off the right-field wall.

Emilio Pagan, the seventh Tampa Bay pitcher, got the final two outs to save it. Marcus Semien ended the game by grounding out to finish the game 0-for-5 and end his hit streak at 17 games. Two other streaks disappeared, too. The A’s had won four in a row. The Rays had lost four in a row.

The A’s took the field after the shock of pitcher Montas’ suspension settled into resignation and determination not to let it derail their recent progress — seven wins in nine games.

With the A’s likeliest avenue to the playoffs a wild card, they know that every win against another contender is crucial.

They even had a shot to move into the second wild-card position by the end of the night had the Red Sox lost, but they won.

The A’s also hoped to get Tanner Anderson his first big-league win in his third career start .

That didn’t happen either. Anderson went four innings and allowed three runs.

The rookie found trouble the old-fashioned way: a leadoff walk to Joey Wendle in the third inning. Wendle scored on a Lowe double and Lowe later followed him home on a passed ball for a 2-0 Rays lead.

Kevin Kiermaier’s leadoff single in the fourth off what appeared to be Anderson’s glove started another scoring rally. With two on, Guillermo Heredia hit a bouncer to second that looked like a possible inning-ending double play.

Second baseman Jurickson Profar made a nice flip to Semien, whose high relay to first extended the inning and allowed Kiermaier to score and give Tampa Bay a 3-1 lead, the A’s having scored on the Olson homer the inning before.

The Rays used an opener for the 24th time in 76 games this season. Andrew Kittredge, a first-timer, pitched two shutout innings before giving way to bulk-innings pitcher Jalen Beeks.

Beeks surrendered Olson’s homer and another by Laureano in the fourth.

Willy Adames joined the solo-homer derby in the sixth against Wei-Chung Wang, giving the Rays a 4-2 lead.

The A’s had a great chance to come back in their half after Khris Davis’ leadoff single. When Profar hit a one-out double to left, the ball rolled a short distance from Tommy Pham after it hit the wall. That turned into a bad break for Oakland because it persuaded third-base coach Matt Williams to send Davis home.

Perfect throws from Pham and the shortstop Adames beat Davis to the plate. The Rays survived a challenge, leaving the A’s with one on and two outs instead of two on and one out.

They did not score.