Before we get into the games, here's a look at the standings and leaders through games of Thursday, August 4:
Right now there's only one tight division race and that's in the NL Central with the Cubs, Cardinals and Brewers all in it. The Mets with baseball's best record is a bit of a surprise and they added Dinelson Lamet from San Diego to bolster their already-good starting rotation. As we saw when playing them, they're tough. Not shown here is the wild card race, where the Yankees have slipped past Houston by 1/2 game to move into the 2nd spot behind Toronto, who's 2 1/2 up on them. Oakland's on an 8-2 run to get within 2 1/2 of a wild card themselves. The NL wild card race is 2 of the 3 teams in the Central plus Atlanta, next closest is Arizona who's 6 behind. And who'd ever thought we'd see Boston this bad? They've had some last-place finishes in the last 10 years but they've never been within 1/2 game of having the worst record in MLB.
Game 1: A stroll at the old ballpark today for the Rays as Blake Snell and Vidal Brujan teamed up to lead a 10-0 thrashing of the defending champion White Sox. Snell was brilliant, going 6 2 0 0 3 11, leaving after 95 pitches with a 10-run lead to improve to 7-5. Brujan, meanwhile, continued his assault on AL pitching, going 3-4, scoring 3 runs and delivering the game's key hit, a 3-run HR off former Gator Dane Dunning with 2 out in the 2nd. He put the Rays on the board in the 1st by singling, stealing second and coming around to score when Nick Madrigal muffed Joey Gallo's grounder. Keibert Ruiz made the rubble bounce with a fourth-inning grand slam (HR #18) and Max Kepler added #20 with a solo shot later in the inning. And Brandon Marsh was on base 3 more times in 4 appearances with 2 singles and a walk and two runs scored. Interestingly, the two new big boppers (Gallo and Bell) were a combined 0-7, and Ji-Man was 3-5 with 2 doubles and a 2-run walk-off HR for Pittsburgh today. Toronto won so the lead stays at 6 1/2 and the magic # drops to 47.
Game 2: High drama at the Trop tonight as the Rays went to the bottom of the ninth down 5-4. The White Sox brought in closer Ian Hamilton, and Keibert Ruiz led off with a HR to tie the game, and Joey Gallo followed with one of his own to win it 6-5. I had been grumbling the last 7-10 days about how neither Bell nor Gallo had a big hit and Joey G came through. His quote in the game recap said it all: "This wasn't a good win. It was a great win." The Rays found themselves behind in a back-and-forth game primarily due to a key error by recent hero Vidal Brujan, which opened the door for Michael Chavis to hit a 2-out, 2-run double off Giovanny Gallegos to give the White Sox their 5-4 lead in the 7th. But Will Harris and Trevor Gott (who Gott the win) pitched perfect 8th and 9th innings to keep it close. Max Fried started and had the barest definition of a quality start, going 6 7 3 3 3 4 but left with a 4-3 lead. The Rays went up 1-0 against Lucas Giolito on a Wander HR, his 20th, only for the White Sox to tie in the 2nd, then for the Rays to regain the lead in the 4th on a Marsh RBI single and a Brujan RBI double. But Luis Robert had a 2-run double off Fried to equalize in the top of the 5th, and then the Rays jumped back ahead with a Kepler RBI single. Seattle took care of Toronto 6-3 (another Brosseau HR) and the lead expands to 7 1/2, with the magic # at 45.
Game 3: A slow start for the Rays was no problem today as behind Tyler Glasnow they ended up cruising to a 7-2 win. The unlikely tandem of Javy Guerra and Jorge Lopez retired the first 11 Rays hitters before Joey Gallo broke the ice with another HR to put them up 1-0. But Nick Madrigal tripled to lead off the 5th and scored on a groundout, and then Eloy Jimenez took Glasnow deep into the rays tank to put the White Sox up 2-1. But the Rays wasted no time erasing the Chicago advantage when Marsh walked, Ronaldo Hernandez singled, and after a ground out and a fly out, Brujan came through once again with one of his patented 2-out doubles up the gap, although it only scored one run. No problem though, as Wander followed with a triple to score Hernandez and Brujan to put the Rays in front to stay. In the 6th Marsh tripled in Kepler and scored on a Kiermaier single and Whit Merrifield, in his first start at 3B, doubled in Marsh in the 8th to complete the scoring. Glasnow was dominant again, going 6 4 2 2 1 10 to improve to 8-2, Nick Anderson struck out the side in his first appearance since the meltdown in Baltimore, and Will Harris and Brad Hand shut it down in the 8th and 9th. Gotta give it up for Harris, who's been great since joining the Rays even though he's pitched in lower-leverage situations than he's used to. In 19.1 innings over 16 appearances he's walked 2 and struck out 25 with a 2.33 ERA. Toronto lost again to Seattle as the lead balloons to 8 1/2 and the magic number drops to 43.
Around MLB, history was made when we had the first double no-hitter in MLB history won by Milwaukee 1-0 over Colorado. Brandon Woodruff of Milwaukee pitched the winning 9-inning no-hitter (in Milwaukee, not in Coors), striking out 15 and only walking 1. Meanwhile opener Yency Almonte pitched 2 no-hit innings ahead of Jerald Eickhoff throwing 6 more, but allowed a run when Lorenzo Cain walked and came around to score on a Keston Hiura groundout in the 4th. According to my research, there has never been an MLB game where neither team got a hit.
Team record: 70-42.