[Art Deco]

May 2: Activated P Shane McClanahan from the 15-day IL, optioned P Jacob Nix to AAA Durham.

The DL stint that wasn't necessary finally ends with McClanahan hopefully tanned, ready and rested after his 2-week vacation. Nix hasn't been all that effective in the middle/long relief role so he was the easy choice to demote.

Game 1: I'm running out of words to describe how things are going because tonight looked an "L" if there ever was going to be one. After Keibert Ruiz and Isaac Parades traded first-inning HRs, the Rays took a brief lead in the 3rd when Wander reached on an error, stole 2nd, went to 3rd on the bad throw, and scored on Ruiz' sac fly. Yonny was pitching well but put a man on in the 5th and gave up a 2-run HR to Daz Cameron putting Detroit in front. With Yonny's pitch count low (60 through 6) he pitched into the 7th but ran into trouble, giving up a 2-run double to Victor Reyes to make it 5-2 Tigers after 7. The Rays offense meanwhile was being stymied by a parade of Detroit relievers who had to come on after "follower" Trevor Williams was forced to leave early due to injury. They finally picked the wrong one in Joey Wentz, who came on in the 8th after a leadoff single. Wentz allowed a single to Kepler, an RBI double to Nelson Cruz, and then a 3-run HR to Abraham Toro to suddenly put the Rays in front 6-5. After Alvarado got them through the 8th, the Rays put 2 more on in front of Toro again in the 9th, and he repeated the feat with another 3-run shot and the Rays took a 9-5 win - their ninth straight - to go to 24-4. Ryne Stanek picked up the win by getting the final out of the 7th in relief of Chirinos. The one bit of bad news to come out of the game is that Wander, who was coming out of his slump with a double and a triple, injured himself sliding into 3rd on the triple and is out for a week with a mild hamstring strain. Hopefully it doesn't develop into another 6-week hamstring injury like last season. Brujan will take over at SS and a roster move should follow. Elsewhere Josh Donaldson's walk-off grand slam gave the Twins a win over Toronto, upping the Rays' lead to a season-high 5 games.

May 3: Placed SS Wander Franco on the 10-day IL with a mild hamstring strain, recalled IF Nolan Gorman from AAA Durham, sent P Tyler Glasnow to AAA Durham on a rehab assignment.

Not going to fool around with Wander's one-week injury, and because he'll only be out 10 days, I'm not going to bring in a player not on the 40-man since there's nobody on the 40-man I want to part with (Stanek would be the closest). Gorman is really a third baseman but has been playing SS at Durham with Owen Miller and Ehire Adrianza injured. He was acquired from St. Louis last year in the Howie Kendrick deal and has considerable power, hitting 36 HR at AA in 2020 and another 22 last year mostly at Durham. He only has 1 this year and he has swing-and-miss issues so his star has faded, especially with Toro and Bohm ahead of him at the position. Nevertheless, he's on the 40-man and he'll get a few at-bats with the big club but Brujan will play pretty much every day at SS in the interim.

Glasnow meanwhile will pitch for the first time since spring training and with 6 starters in the rotation right now he won't be rushed back from his rehab assignment. I'm expecting him to make 3 starts at Durham, and if nobody else in the rotation gets hurt by that time I don't know who I'm going to drop.

Game 2: Like last night, the Rays dug themselves a hole. Unlike last night the hole was too big and they stayed in it, losing 6-1 to Detroit. I'm not sure which piece of bad news to lead with first, so I'll go with the thought that Blake Snell looks broken. After a 1-2-3 first, he walked two guys and then gave up a 3-run HR to David Bote in the 2nd, and then struggled and allowed 3 more in the 3rd although a Merrifield error did not help. After he put a couple of more on with two out in the 4th, he was pulled and ended with an ugly 3.2 5 6 4 4 3 line. He's only had one good start this year, the one against Texas. The other bad news is that Kiermaier was hurt making a diving catch and is out 5 weeks with a hamstring. Normally my move to replace him would be to go to heir apparent Josh Lowe, but Lowe struggled so bad at Durham the first few weeks that he went back to AA where he isn't hitting much better. Yusniel Diaz isn't really a full-time CF so I'll have to figure things out. Diaz had the Rays' lone RBI tonight and the one bright spot out of the whole game was Shane McClanahan's first game back. He took over for Snell in the 4th and pitched 3 1/3 perfect innings, striking out four. Otherwise Detroit lefty Tarik Skubal was brilliant, going 8 5 1 1 3 9 against them as he was only the 4th lefty they've had start against them this season so perhaps it was the unfamiliarity that did them in. And Nate Pearson pitched a no-hitter for Toronto so they've gotten back within 4.

Tyler Glasnow Rehab Update: First start at Durham (facing a lot of MLB vets like Smoak, T.Shaw, N.Walker, DeShields, Aguilar): 3 1 1 1 2 6, struck out the side in the first. Ended up throwing 59 pitches, a few more than planned, looking at 70-75 pitches next start.

May 4: Placed OF Kevin Kiermaier on the 15-day IL with a hamstring strain, recalled OF Josh Lowe from AA Montgomery.

Decided to go with Lowe after all, although Yusniel Diaz will get the vast majority of starts while Kiermaier is out. Need a legitimate backup OF as Nelson Cruz really isn't fit to play the position.

Game 3: Normal service resumed as the Rays rolled past the Tigers today 11-3. A Meadows RBI groundout, a Yusniel Diaz RBI single and a Nelson Cruz solo HR put them up 3-0 through 4, and then they broke it open with 5 runs in the 5th highlighted by a Max Kepler 3-run shot to chase starter Matt Manning, and then Cruz greeted Alex Faedo with another HR of his own. Abe Toro went deep again later, and Josh Lowe and Nolan Gorman got at-bats in the 9th with the game in hand as Lowe walked in his first MLB plate appearance and Gorman singled in his Rays debut. Brendan McKay was the beneficiary of this run support, and while he wasn't at his sharpest (6 4 2 2 4 4) he was good enough to go to 3-1. Kepler helped out on defense by gunning down two runners trying to take an extra base. Toronto won to stay within 4 ahead of the big series between the Rays and Jays coming up a couple of days.

Team record: 25-5.