ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Joe Maddon was upbeat even on a disappointing day.

The Tampa Bay manager predicted his team “will be back next year” after the defending AL champion Rays were eliminated from the postseason with a 4-3 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night.

“I like the way everyone is hanging together,” Maddon said. “There’s a lot of lessons to be learned through negative experiences like this. I think we learned a lot this year.”

Tampa Bay had finished last in the AL East every season but one, and never had a winning season until going 97-65 last season. The baseball world was stunned by that performance, just as the Rays were shocked by how this year turned out.

“It’s disappointing because you know the expectations are so high at spring training,” Rays left fielder Carl Crawford said. “We didn’t do what we set out to do. Hopefully we learn from it and just come back next year and compete.”

Jose Lopez hit a tiebreaking home run in the eighth inning off Dan Wheeler (4-5) for the Mariners. Ichiro Suzuki had a two-run homer, his third in the last 10 games.

“You just go on and look forward to 2010,” Wheeler said of the Rays, who are 77-74 this season.

The Rays have struggled late in games down the stretch. They are 5-14 since Sept. 3, with nine of the losses coming in the eighth inning or later. Tampa Bay’s bullpen is 0-8 with a 6.58 ERA over the stretch, allowing 48 hits and 10 homers.

“We’ve played that script before,” Maddon said.

Maddon said the thing he has appreciated the most as the Rays dropped from contention was the onfield effort.

“At this time of the year, you’re not going anywhere except home and you have a bunch of guys out there playing it the right way,” Maddon said. “I loved it.”