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Ramos drove in four runs in the first two innings against Verlander and the Tampa Bay Rays went on to a 5-2 win over the Astros on Saturday.

”I wasn’t sharp Jerry Hughes Jersey , but also I didn’t have luck on my side,” Verlander said. ”I made an adjustment during the third inning that I thought was good, but it was too little too late.”

Verlander (9-4) gave up the most runs (5) and hits (9) of any of his 23 starts since his trade to Houston late last summer. He struck out eight in a season-low five innings after coming in with a major league-leading 1.82 ERA – though it was 4.34 in six June starts. The Astros have lost his last three starts.

Matt Duffy finished with three hits, including two in the first two innings, to help the Rays win for the seventh time in eight tames to move to .500 (41-41) for the first time since June 1.

”I gave up three hard-hit balls, all to the same guy. The rest of `em, nobody hit the ball hard,” Verlander said.

Ramos got the Rays on the scoreboard with a two-run double in the first, and made it 5-0 with a two-run single in the second. Those two at bats summarized Verlander’s day.

”The first at bat, I put him in a 3-1 situation where, bases loaded, he knows a heater’s coming, and he hit it off the wall. So that’s my fault Christian Okoye Jersey ,” Verlander said. ”His next bat I got a ground ball up the middle on a slider, which is kind of what you’re looking for. But it found a hole.”

Tampa Bay has held opponents to two runs or fewer in five straight games for only the second time in franchise history.

”The way these guys are throwing right now, we’re tough to beat,” said Kevin Kiermaier, who scored in each of the first two innings.

Alex Bregman got the Astros on the board with a two-run homer in the sixth off Vidal Nuno. It was Bregman’s 16th home run and his fifth in six games.

”They’ve been throwing the ball well over there, and we haven’t really been able to put anything together,” Bregman said. ”Verlander was a little unfortunate today with some of the weak contact that went for hits, but we’ve got to do a better job of putting up runs for him.

Nuno (2-0) got the win after pitching 4 2/3 innings of relief, giving up two runs and four hits while striking out four. Sergio Romo pitched ninth for his seventh save in 11 opportunities.

Ryne Stanek pitched the first inning for Tampa Bay, giving up a single to Jose Altuve, Houston’s only hit in the first four innings.

RARE ERROR

Adeiny Hechavarria made a fielding error on George Springer’s grounder in the top of the sixth just before Bregman’s homer. It ended a streak of 94 games and 319 chances in which the Rays’ shortstop had not committed a miscue. It was the longest errorless streak in franchise history for a shortstop. Hechavarria’s last error had come on July 30, 2017 at Yankee Stadium.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Astros: RHP Joe Smith (sore right elbow) will make what the Astros expect to be a final rehab appearance at Double-A Corpus Christi before being activated. … 1B Yuli Gurriel (paternity leave) is expected to be back in the lineup Sunday.

Rays: RHP Wilmer Font was placed on the 10-day disabled and RHP Hunter Wood was recalled from Triple-A Durham. Manager Kevin Cash said an optimistic timeframe has Font missing eight weeks. … Cash didn’t completely rule out RHP Chris Archer (left abdominal strain) from returning after his first rehab start Tuesday night锟?for Class A Charlotte.

UP NEXT

The series finale will be a matchup of two of baseball’s hottest pitchers. Houston RHP Charlie Morton (10-1, 2.54) has won three straight starts and has not given up an earned run in his last two. LHP Blake Snell (10-4 Shaun Alexander Jersey , 2.31) did not give up a hit until the seventh inning of the Rays’ 11-0 win against Washington on Monday night.

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Even with the conference finals going on, the NBA’s eyes turn to the future this week.

A future that, perhaps, will have less tanking.

The draft lottery – the last before changes come next year to dissuade tanking – is Tuesday night, and then about 70 players will partake in the draft combine that starts on Wednesday. Those events are both happening in Chicago, as are some various league meetings such as a gathering of NBA general managers and other front-office executives.

But the biggest news will be made by 14 pingpong balls that will decide who drafts No. 1 next month.

”We’ve got to see what happens in the lottery first and see where our position is,” Memphis executive vice president of basketball operations John Hollinger said. ”That’s going to dictate a lot of the decisions that come after that and how we use our time after that.”

Phoenix has a 25 percent chance of winning the No. 1 pick, followed by Memphis (19.9 percent), Dallas (13.8 percent) and Atlanta (13.7 percent). The rest of the candidates for No. 1 are Orlando (8.8 percent), Chicago (5.3), Sacramento (5.3), Cleveland (2.8), New York (1.7) Laquon Treadwell Jersey , Philadelphia (1.1), Charlotte (0.8), Detroit (0.7), the Los Angeles Clippers (0.6) and Denver (0.5).

Many of those teams were at the center of tanking questions this season. Now they’ll see if it pays off.

”We did this year what we felt was in the long-term best interest of the Bulls,” Chicago vice president of basketball operations John Paxson said. ”It’s not a situation that any of us want to ever be in again. And it goes against everything as a competitive person that you believe in. But it’s the way the system’s set up.”

For now. The NBA is changing the system.

Starting in 2019, with the NBA hoping that teams have less incentive to strive for the worst record and therefore the best chance of winning the lottery, the odds will be changing. The three teams with the worst regular-season record will each have a 14 percent chance of winning the No. 1 pick, the fourth-worst team will have a 12.5 percent chance and the fifth-worst 10.5 percent.

”My sense is we’re still going to have some work to do,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said.

Tanking got plenty of attention this season, and a few minutes on Jan. 29 might have decided the race.

Phoenix and Memphis played that night. The Grizzlies scored 42 points in the second quarter – their only 40-point period all season – and forced the Suns into 10 consecutive misses in one stretch, on the way to a 120-109 win.

The Suns finished one game worse than the Grizzlies. Flip that Jan. 29 outcome, and it would been the Grizzlies with the best chance at the No. 1 pick.

”The league has been beating us up right now,” said Phoenix guard Devin Booker Russell Bodine Jersey , who hasn’t come even close to making the playoffs and is already on the fourth head coach of his three-year career now that the Suns have hired Igor Kokoskov. ”But I think it’s going to be motivational for us. I know for myself, working out, I think about that all the time. I never want to be in these situations again.”

The new lottery format isn’t the only looming change related to drafts. It seems likely that by 2020, the one-and-done rule – in place since 2006 – will be gone and players will be allowed to jump from high school directly to the NBA again.

If that was the case this season, the rights to draft phenoms like R.J. Barrett, Zion Williamson and Cameron Reddish would probably be decided by those pingpong balls in Chicago on Tuesday. Instead, they’re all going to Duke this fall.

So they won’t be at the combine, nor will the likely top two picks in the June 21 draft – Arizona’s Deandre Ayton, and Slovenia’s Luka Doncic. Ayton declined the invitation to participate in Chicago, and Doncic’s season in Europe isn’t over yet.

”We sort of expected this, that we might not see the top couple guys there,” Hollinger said. ”So we just have to adjust from that and get our information in other ways.”

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