Game 1: The Rays haven't had to face much adversity so far this season, but facing a team that's won 15 of 16 and losing your starting pitcher to (minor) injury in the 4th inning and still winning is a measure of something. The Rays edged KC 4-3 behind 6 1/3 good innings of relief as Max Fried had to depart early with a mild calf strain. He'll be fine to make his next start and he was continuing his strikeout ways with 5 through 3 2/3 before leaving. At that point he had yielded a HR to the prior batter, Juan Pablo Martinez, which gave the Royals a brief 1-0 lead. Keibert (who had 3 hits) singled in Wander, who had led off the 4th with a double, to tie it and in the bottom of the 5th Max Kepler doubled in a run and Vidal Brujan's groundout scored Alex Kirilloff to make it 3-1. The struggling Dany Jimenez had come on in long relief of Fried and was dazzling through the 5th (striking out 5 in 3.1 overall) but may have been left in a bit long when he gave up a 2-run HR to Lewis Brinson in the top of the 6th to tie it. But after Austin Meadows (in another mini-slump) walked to lead off the bottom of the inning, Alec Bohm singled him home with 2 out for what proved to be the winning run. Scott Barlow got two outs in the 7th against his old mates before allowing a single, bringing up the lefty-hitting Martinez. Alvarado came on and whiffed him, then got into some trouble of his own in the 8th, walking Xavier Edwards to lead off the inning (Edwards was 0-1 with 3 walks against Rays pitching) and allowing a single but like yesterday Nick Anderson came in and bailed him out with a fly ball and a pair of strikeouts. Will Smith finally got a save situation and nailed it, throwing a perfect 9th and striking out Anthony Alford to end the game for save #5. The Rays didn't have it easy against KC starter Daniel Tillo, who went all 8 innings and put up an 8 8 4 3 1 3 line, no mean feat against this lineup. They go to 19-4 and with Baltimore and the Yankees losing the lead is already an eye-popping 8 1/2 games.
Durham update: After posting yesterday as to how bad things were going, figured I'd mention they pulled out a 7-6 win in the bottom of the 9th when Triston Casas (who had been in a huge slump) got his 4th hit of the game to drive in the winning run, this after he tied the game in the 7th with a solo HR. And Spencer Torkelson had a pair of HRs earlier in the game. Asa Lacy was mediocre, though, going 5 5 4 4 3 3.
Game 2: No sooner do I hint that Austin Meadows is slumping again than he heats up, and it was his heroics today that ensured an 8-6 win for the Rays. He had a 2-run double in the 5th to provide some breathing room in a game that the Rays only led 4-3, and his 2-run HR in the 8th turned out to be a big deal when the Royals got 2 runs in the 9th off the Rays "B" bullpen. Joe Ryan had a mediocre start, going 5 7 3 3 1 6 (but amazingly allowing 0 HRs), and with Anderson/Alvarado/Smith all tired, the "other guys" in the bullpen had to navigate a 6-3 lead through the final 4 innings. Aaron Ashby struck out 4 of the 5 batters he faced, but the fifth was former Ray Brandon Lowe who took him deep to make it 6-4. Austin Franklin got the final 2 outs of the 7th without incident, and although he put a couple of runners on, Shane McClanahan got a pair of Ks to get through the 8th. After Meadows expanded the lead to 8-4, I left McClanahan in to see if he could finish it out but he immediately put two men on so Scott Barlow was summoned for the save. Barlow gave up a walk to load the bases and allowed a hit to score both of McClanahan's runners but he got Lowe to fly out with the tying runs on to end the game. Earlier, Vidal Brujan led off the 1st inning with HR #4 off another former Ray, Lucas Sims, who was opening for Jake Junis, whom the Rays treated like a pinata with 5 runs and 7 hits off him in 2 2/3. Brujan ended up 3-4 with that HR, 2 RBI and a SB, and Alec Bohm had a 2-run HR off Junis in the 4th, his team-leading 7th. We go to 20-4 and with Syndergaard going tomorrow hopefully the bullpen can get some rest. The Os and the Yankees both won so the big lead doesn't get any bigger.
Game 3: What a pleasure it is to have a true ace, a #1 starter you can rely on. Noah Syndergaard is one of those guys and with only Nick Anderson and Will Smith fully rested in the pen we needed innings from Thor. And innings he gave us, pitching a complete game in a 4-2 win over the Royals, sweeping the series and making it 6 wins in a row. Syndergaard went 9 6 2 2 1 9 and the pitch count was up there at 126, but he got better as the game went on and put an exclamation point on it by striking out the final two batters in the 9th. He now goes to 6-0 with an even 3.00 ERA. The Rays got all the offense they would need in the first inning when Rafael Devers hit a 2-run HR and then two batters later Alec Bohm, heating up again, hit #8. Bohm added a double later and a big sac fly to get an insurance run in the 8th. Devers (with 3, now hitting .355) and Bohm combined for half of the team's 10 hits. With Syndergaard's CG and a day off tomorrow, the bullpen will be fully rested for a 3-game series in Boston starting Friday. The Yankees won to take sole possession of 2nd, 8 1/2 behind.
Team record: 21-4.
With 25 games under our belt, let's see how the Rays stack up:
The big improvement over last year is on the run prevention side of things. Obviously being #1 ERA and runs allowed is big. The bullpen is good like last year but the starters have been so much better, primarily due to trading the inconsistency of Snell and McKay for the consistency of Thor and Paddack. (Snell is having a nice year so far with the Mets, but I trust Syndergaard to keep it going). But the other major improvement is in team defense. We're first in the league in turning batted balls into outs, and the +3.9 zone rating is a far cry from last year's negative numbers. I'm not sure how or to whom to attribute the difference, but I will note that Devers is slightly better than Toro at 3B, and Alec Bohm is a 75 defender at 1B although I've always been under the impression that 1B defense only has a slight impact either way. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same team in the field. Let's hope this keeps up. Like last year we're #1 or close to it in all the important offensive categories but notice that we're only 7th in HRs as while there's power up and down the lineup this is not a team that relies on the longball by any stretch which is what makes them relatively impervious to being shut down on a given night. Walks are down a bit with Toro and the likes of Gallo and Bell gone but Devers replaces the walks with hits and this team also doesn't strike out, averaging less than 6 per game which is an outrageous number in this era of the strikeout. Also the base stealing is down a bit this year but when you're up 8-2 you're not going to run as much. So the numbers under the hood support the great record, even if we are 3 games above the Pythagorean record as no team is a true .840 team. But this could be a true .733 team or at least .700 if the key performers stay healthy.