ST. PETERSBURG - Joe Maddon has no reason to be worried about his starting pitching and he says he isn't concerned about his bullpen.

After a third consecutive game lost in large part because of the Rays' inability to mount a serious offensive threat, though, Maddon laid the responsibility for Thursday's 3-2 loss to the White Sox at the feet of his hitters.

"These are three games in a row pretty much cut from the same cloth, whereas we could have won all three with a little more offense," Maddon said. "We're facing good pitching, but we've got to figure out a way to put more runs on the board."

Since burying the Yankees with 15 runs on 17 hits in their home opener, the Rays have scraped together a total of seven runs and 14 hits in three games.

Chicago starter John Danks surrendered only a sixth-inning solo homer by Carlos Pena in the series opener, which was just stingy enough to maintain an edge over the two-run Jermaine Dye homer that represented Jeff Niemann's only blemish.

The Rays finally put multiple men on base in the ninth, but managed just one run as Gabe Gross grounded out with two in scoring position to end it.

"We went through this last year a little bit, too," Jason Bartlett said. "We're going to start winning the close games; that's what we did last year.

"We just kept battling and got a big hit here and there."

White Sox ? 3 Rays ? 2

White Sox AB R H BI BB SO Avg.

Getz 2b 5 0 2 0 0 1 .227

Fields 3b 5 0 3 1 0 1 .355

Quentin lf 4 0 0 0 1 1 .258

Thome dh 4 1 0 0 1 1 .167

Dye rf 5 1 3 2 0 2 .400

Konerko 1b 4 0 1 0 0 0 .344

Pierzynski c 4 0 3 0 0 0 .276

AL.Ramirez ss 4 0 1 0 0 0 .156

Bri.Anderson cf 4 1 1 0 0 0 .167

Totals 39 3 14 3 2 6

Rays AB R H BI BB SO Avg.

B.Upton cf 3 0 0 0 2 1 .143

Crawford lf 5 0 0 1 0 2 .244

Burrell dh 3 0 1 0 1 2 .212

1-Gross pr-dh 1 0 0 0 0 0 .188

C.Pena 1b 2 1 1 1 2 1 .289

W.Aybar 3b 4 0 0 0 0 1 .143

Navarro c 4 0 1 0 0 1 .212

Zobrist 2b 3 0 0 0 1 1 .200

Bartlett ss 4 1 2 0 0 0 .389

Kapler rf 3 0 0 0 0 1 .125

a-Iwamura ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .333

Totals 33 2 5 2 6 10

White Sox 020 000 001 - 3 14 1

Rays 000 001 001 - 2 5 0

a-reached on error for Kapler in the 9th.

1-ran for Burrell in the 8th.

E-Getz (1). LOB-White Sox 11, Rays 10. 2B-Getz (2). 3B-Fields (2). HR-Dye (3), off Niemann; C.Pena (5), off Danks. RBIs-Fields (5), Dye 2 (6), Crawford (7), C.Pena (12). SB-Pierzynski (1), Crawford (3), Bartlett 2 (4), Iwamura (4). DP- Rays 1 (Bartlett, Zobrist, C.Pena).

White Sox IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA

Danks W, 1-0 6 2 1 1 4 8 101 0.75

Dotel H, 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 14 0.00

Thornton H, 2 1 1 0 0 1 2 22 0.00

Jenks S, 3-3 1 1 1 0 1 0 21 4.50

Rays IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA

Niemann L, 0-2 6 9 2 2 1 3 97 6.35

Cormier 2 1/3 5 1 1 0 1 55 3.52

Balfour 2/3 0 0 0 1 2 15 15.43

T-3:11. A-13,803 (36,973).

Photo credit: Tribune photo by CHRIS URSO

Photo: Rays second baseman Ben Zobrist falls over Josh Fields during Thursday's 3-2 loss.

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