ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — An empty parking lot Thursday was the sign of a season that ended way too early for the Tampa Bay Rays.

What You Need To Know

  • Rays lost both games to Texas Rangers, 4-0 and 7-1

  • The team has lost three consecutive postseason series, and seven consecutive postseason games

  • Players frustrated by flat performance in wild-card series

For the third consecutive year, the Rays were eliminated in their first series of the postseason, this time to the Texas Rangers in a two-game sweep.

But it’s the way they went out this year — a 99-win regular season — that hurt more then any of the years past.

"It was uncharacteristic Rays baseball," second baseman Brandon Lowe said of the team's performance, which included four errors in Game 1 on Tuesday and only one run in the two games against Texas.

"So I hope everyone can kind of just forget those two games, and we show up in a few months and get everyone back healthy and play our baseball."

Throw in the struggles of Tampa Bay's starting pitching, and it was the perfect storm that ended the Rays season.

"We put up 99 wins in the regular season. That’s hard to do, so it’s impressive in it’s own right," said outfielder Luke Raley. "It’s super unfortunate that we lost in the wild-card round."

Manager Kevin Cash said it was tough to pinpoint the biggest factor in the last three postseason exits. The Rays won the American League pennant in the COVID season of 2020 but haven't reached the AL Championship Series since.

"We’d like to continue playing, but I can’t put my finger on one specific thing that why we’ve been eliminated pretty quickly," Cash said.

The Rays will have to wait four months before taking the field again next spring in Port Charlotte. For now, there are a lot of questions and not enough answers.