[Art Deco]

Game 1: The Rays trailed 4-0 (later 4-1) and were being shut down by Cleveland starter Edwin Flores into the 7th. But a 3-run rally with 2 out in the inning tied it up, and Luis Corpus blasted a 2-run homer (#7) off Cleveland closer Jackson Baumeister in the 9th to give the Rays a 6-4 comeback win. Marc Wagner started and had a rough 2nd inning which was extended by a Connor Kirkley error. Although the runs were unearned, it was mostly Wagner's fault as he gave up an RBI single and then a 3-run homer to the light-hitting Tsung Che-Cheng to make it 4-0 Cleveland. He did pitch well from there, and ended the night 6.1 5 4 0 1 9, lowering his ERA to 3.41. Victor de Jesus got the Rays on the board in the 5th with his 12th homer, but the real action started in the 7th. With a man on second Flores got a pair of Rays to whiff but suddenly lost the plate, walking his first two men of the night to load 'em up. Ricky Widmar hit a 2-run single to make it 4-3 and Dayle Jenkins singled to tie it up. This set the stage for Corpus to come through in the 9th with the biggest hit of his young Rays career. Evan Godwin got Wagner out of the 7th but put two on in the 8th and Jose Alvarado got him out of that pickle, stranding the go-ahead run at 3rd with a grounder at the drawn-in infield and a whiff. He stayed on to save his own win in the 9th, his first of the year.

Game 2: The Rays jumped out to a big early lead and coasted to a 7-4 win over Cleveland. Joe Barker had two big hits, an RBI single in the 1st to get them on the board and another one in the 3rd to make it 3-1 Rays after Nate Clark singled in a run. Rodolfo Rivas then unloaded a 3-run shot later in the 3rd (#9) to make it 6-1 and Victor de Jesus added an RBI triple in the 7th. Andy Aparicio started and wasn't quite his normal dominating self but gutted through it to go 6 7 2 2 2 4 and join teammate Christian Little on 10 wins at 10-0. The ERA jumped about 11 points to 1.29 so Bob Gibson is safe for now. Brad Ballmann wasn't very good again in relief in the 7th, giving up a couple of runs even they were unearned due to a Rivas error. But Tim Siqueiros was sharp in the 8th with a pair of whiffs and Jordan Diaz got save #12 with three groundball outs from the three men he faced. Jasson Dominguez had to leave the game with a hip flexor strain in the 3rd, and although it's a minimal day-to-day injury it's going to last for two weeks so we'll just go ahead and put him on the 10-day IL in an abundance of caution.

June 22: Placed OF Jasson Dominguez on the 10-day IL with a hip flexor strain, recalled OF Alex Buitrago from AAA Durham.

My knee-jerk reaction was to bring up D'Andre Hodges again, and lord knows he deserves it having gone 319/396/551 at Durham this year after being up briefly early in the season. But Buitrago deserves a shot, and unlike Hodges he's a real CF with 60 defense. And he went 310/363/552 with 19 HR and 88 RBI at Durham last year so he doesn't much left to prove there either, despite being down this year at 251/330/433. His real skill is somewhere between those two but he's a legit MLB CF who's probably going to end up traded because top-5 prospect Omar Rodriguez is right behind him at AA Montgomery, but we're going to give him a shot while J-Dom is out.

Game 3: A makeshift lineup couldn't generate much offense and Cleveland finally got to Christian Little in the 7th to break a 2-2 tie as the Rays dropped the final game of this series 4-2. With Nate Clark and Dayle Jenkins both fatigued, and Jasson Dominguez on the IL, the Rays could only manage 4 hits against Cleveland pitching with all of their offense coming against Cleveland opener Hayden Durke, who gave up a Connor Kirkley homer (#16) in the first and was charged with the second run when Rodolfo Rivas reached on his wild pitch strikeout and scored when Dane Ayers singled off Luke Weaver. But that was all the Rays could muster against the 37-year-old veteran, who held them to 7.2 3 0 0 1 4 on 89 pitches before leaving after giving up a 2-out single to Victor de Jesus in the 9th. Cleveland closer Jackson Baumeister bounced back from losing the first game of the series by whiffing Joe Barker to end the game. Little had a rough first inning, allowing 2 runs, but settled in after that until he ran out of gas in the 7th and the first two reached, were sacrificed over and then that man Tsung Che-Cheng came through again with a 2-run single through the drawn-in infield. Little went 6.1 7 4 4 1 8 and dropped to 10-2. Mike Mooney pitched better than last time, getting the final 5 outs, but it didn't matter in the end. Alex Buitrago made his MLB debut starting in CF, even though he too was fatigued. He nearly had a sac fly on his first MLB at-bat but former Rays property Jordan Evangelista gunned down Mike Lammers at home, and he ended up 0-3. He'll rest tomorrow given his fatigue but will likely start after that while J-Dom is out.

Team record: 58-13. Next up: Back home for 3 vs Toronto.