Game 1: It was fitting that the man nicknamed Thor pitched for the Rays tonight as they were a team of avengers looking for payback against Cleveland's Kantaro Yokoyama, who went 8 innings to beat the Rays and snap their AL-record 25-game winning streak last August. Syndergaard was an iron man tonight, going 8 innings himself as the Rays defeated Cleveland 4-2 for their 4th straight win. It was a welcome return to form for the ace righthander, going 8 5 1 1 1 7 and picking up his AL-leading 8th win. He could have been involved in the endgame except Will Smith was owed a save situation, which he managed to achieve despite allowing a solo HR to Bobby Bradley. The Rays got on the board against Yokoyama quickly when Austin Meadows hulked out with a first inning 2-run HR. After Meadows reached on a Jose Rondon error in the 5th, Keibert Ruiz doubled him home to make it 3-0, and after Cleveland scratched out a run in the 7th, Beer was served in the RF bleachers when pinch-hitter Seth hit #8 off one-time longtime Rays reliever Diego Castillo. Also, I misspoke when I said the Orioles had swept the Yankees yesterday; they in fact had one more game today and it went something like this:
I remember when we used to play those kind of games. As a result the lead is now 8 1/2.
Durham update: It's been a while since we checked on our boys in AAA and after a rough 8-13 start to the season the Bulls are 15-4 in their last 19. Spencer Torkelson is ridiculously hot right now. Earlier in the year he was hitting HRs but not much else and his average dipped below .200. Well now he's at 275/328/700 with 19 HR in only 160 AB and has 6 HR and 16 RBI in his last 6 games. Also hitting the ball out of park is Chris Betts, who could probably start or least be the backup for 2/3 of the teams in MLB but is stuck behind Keibert and Ronaldo. He has 10 HR in 92 at-bats and an OPS of 1.004. Nick Schnell also continues to rake at 303/395/533 with 9 HR of his own. Jimmy Lewis has been the most consistent starter, 4-1 with a 3.08 ERA and a 16/58 BB/K ratio in 49 innings, although Clarke Schmidt will get the call to start tomorrow as I don't want to be calling up Baz or Lewis before super-2 time in June and Schmidt has toiled at Durham long enough to earn another start or two to audition for the #5 role before I turn to Baz or Lewis or make a trade. Another name to remember is Sandy Gaston, who has been closing since his promotion from AA Montgomery and has 16 Ks in 6 2/3 innings with 80 stuff right now, not "potential". He may be a part of the big club's bullpen before long.
May 26: Optioned P Drew Strotman to AAA Durham, recalled P Clarke Schmidt from AAA Durham.
As advertised. Schmidt gets the start tonight against Shane Bieber.
Game 2: This turned out to be one of the more satisfying wins of the season as Clarke Schmidt pitched really well and the Rays relied on the long ball for a change from their usual offensive M.O. to take a 6-4 win over Cleveland and Shane Bieber. Bieber stifled the Rays in the early innings, retiring the first 11 before a Rafael Devers single. Down 3-0 in the 5th they finally broke through when Bieber hit Seth Beer with a pitch (the 10th time this season Beer has been hit, and this time he was forced to leave with a bruised forearm), gave up a single to Triston Casas who was starting in place of Alec Bohm (who came in for Beer) and then Max Kepler, who's been doing this a lot of late, hit a big 3-run HR to tie the game. Devers then homered off Bieber in the 7th to put the Rays in front to stay, Brandon Marsh had an RBI triple in the 8th, and Casas homered (his 3rd in 20 AB since the call-up) in the 9th to round out the scoring. Meanwhile, Schmidt looked much more impressive tonight than he did in his earlier start against the White Sox. Nolan Jones took him deep in the 2nd and he would have been out of the 3rd unscathed except Wander booted a ground ball for his first error of the season and Jake Bauers ripped a 2-run double to make it 3-0. But he held tough while the Rays tied it up and took the lead, and ended up with a quite good 5.1 3 3 1 0 6 line, the lack of walks and the 6 Ks impressed me most. With Cleveland stacking the lineup with lefties, Shane McClanahan took over in the 6th and retired all 5 batters he faced through the 7th (with only one K), Nick Anderson pitched the 8th (he allowed 2 hits but Keibert Ruiz caught Pat Valaika napping off first and threw him out). Will Smith came on for the save and for the second day in a row gave up a solo HR (Jones' 2nd of the night) and with two out gave up a base hit to Bobby Bradley who foolishly decided to try to stretch his single into a double despite being down by 2 and was gunned down by Kepler to end the game. So Schmidt gets his first major league win (and another start) while Smith gets a shaky save #10. After a 19-18 game yesterday Baltimore went to Coors Field to play the Rockies and the score was.......4-1 Orioles?? I'm not sure which of those games is the more improbable. Anyway the lead remains 8 1/2.
Game 3: A frustrating outing in which the Rays couldn't get a hit with men on base to save their lives, wasted a great outing from Tyler Glasnow and with Will Smith tired from going the last two nights watched Scott Barlow blow a save in the ninth as they fell 2-1 to Cleveland. Glasnow was almost unhittable, going 7 4 0 0 0 10 in his best outing of the year but the offense continually put men on base, and continually failed to bring them home. They outhit Cleveland 11-5, had another run on via the base on balls, but had 2 men caught stealing, hit into 2 double plays and seemed to get a hit every inning with 2 out. In fact their only run came in the 5th when they loaded the bases against Luis Castillo with nobody out and Brandon Marsh hit into a double play. Still they could have won if Barlow hadn't melted down in the ninth. After Jose Alvarado pitched a perfect 8th, Barlow walked the first two batters in the ninth on four pitches each, got Christian Arroyo to ground out but they couldn't turn the DP, and with runners on 1st and 3rd he allowed a Jose Rondon double to score the tying run and put men on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out. With lefty Nolan Jones due, Shane McClanahan was summoned in hopes of a strikeout, but Jones hit a fly ball deep enough to right to bring home the winner for Cleveland. The Orioles won in Coors in a more Coors-like game, 13-9, so the lead is down to 7 1/2.
Game 4: Another terrible performance from the offense doomed them in a 4-2 loss, as they only managed 4 hits for the game. Chris Paddack was victimized twice by Gregory Polanco, first for a 2-run HR in the 2nd and then a solo shot in the 6th that broke a 2-2 tie. Otherwise he was solid with a 7 7 3 3 2 6 line but the only real offense he got was an Austin Meadows homer leading off the 2nd and a run scored in the 5th off a Jose Rondon throwing error. Aaron Ashby came on in the 8th and immediately surrendered a HR to Christian Arroyo, continuing his struggles. Brujan and Wander have stopped hitting at the top of the lineup and when they don't get on it's tough to score runs. Just when it looked like the team was snapping out of its funk and winning five straight, they now drop two winnable games in a row at Cleveland. Baltimore swept the Rockies so the lead is cut again to 6 1/2.
Team record: 36-16.