[Art Deco]

May 27: Activated OF Brandon Marsh from his rehab assignment at AAA Durham, optioned OF Hunter Bishop to AAA Durham.

It's great to have our all-star CF back, and it was an impressive 5-week stint filling in for him from Bishop, who proved he can hit and hit for power at the MLB level. His insane start led to the expected slowdown, but when all was said and done he went 252/291/524 with 8 HR and 25 RBI in 103 AB and 0.8 WAR so he made the loss of Marsh hurt as little as could be reasonably expected.

Game 1: A bizarre, back-and-forth game that saw the Rays walk it off in the bottom of the 9th on a two-out, 3-run Nick Schnell pinch-hit homer and prevail 6-5. The Rays took a 3-2 lead into the eighth on solo HRs from Wander Franco (more on him in a minute), Austin Meadows (back-to-back in the 1st) and Alec Bohm behind a fine 7 5 2 2 2 8 effort from Matt Manning, who gave up both runs in a rough first inning. But Jose Alvarado didn't get it done in the 8th (I probably left him in too long figuring he could get one more righty out), allowing the tying run and leaving men on base, and Mitch Keller had his first ineffective outing since very early in the season, allowing one of Alvarado's runners to score to give LA the lead and then giving up one of his own in the 9th to put them down 5-3. Ken Giles came on for the 9th and gave up singles to Rafael Devers and Bohm to lead off the inning but whiffed Keston Hiura and Spencer Torkelson. So Schnell came in to pinch-hit for the pitcher, Ian Hamilton (who got the last out of the 9th) and drilled a 1-1 Giles pitch into the RF stands for pandemonium on Memorial Day at the Trop. Schnell was batting for the pitcher because we lost the DH when Wander Franco had to leave the game injured. Hiura had started at DH and there were no other middle infielders on the bench so he had to take over 2B and Vidal Brujan slid over to SS. Franco will be DtD for 6 days with forearm stiffness so it's not too serious but he might go on the IL. Nevertheless, had he not gotten hurt Schnell may have never had the chance to win it so it's funny how things can turn out.

Game 2: A second straight 6-5 victory for the Rays, although this one wasn't of the walk-off variety. But like yesterday, they lost the lead before getting it back in the end. Tyler Glasnow started, and like Matt Manning yesterday had some first inning trouble but he got out of it only down 1-0. This set the stage for a big 3rd inning which saw the bases loaded ahead of Austin Meadows who cleared them with a triple. Rafael Devers singled Meadows home, and Seth Beer got Devers home with a groundout. A 5-1 lead with Glasnow on the mound normally looks secure, but in the 6th he gave up a pair of 2-run homers to Anthony Rizzo and Marcus Semien and just like that we were tied. The Rays though struck back in the bottom of the inning. Brandon Marsh walked, Vidal Brujan singled, and after Keston Hiura lined out, Marsh and Brujan pulled off a double steal enabling Marsh to score on Meadows' fly ball to center and restoring the lead. It was then time for the up-and-down bullpen to lock it down and today they were up. Glasnow got the first two outs in the seventh before allowing a double (leaving at 6.2 8 5 5 1 8), so Nick Anderson came on and got Nick Solak to fly out. Jose Alvarado made up for his struggles yesterday by getting a 1-2-3 8th, and Jasseel De La Cruz did likewise in the 9th, nabbing his 5th save. The Rays came into this series 3-6 in 1-run games and 3 games below their Pythagorean record but now have won two of them in as many days.

Game 3: Another tight one at the Trop, and another one in the win column for the Rays as they got by the Angels 3-1. It was a duel between Daniel Lynch and the always-tough-on-the-Rays Yohander Mendez, who beat them in Game 4 of last year's ALCS. Lynch allowed the leadoff man on in 5 of his 6 innings but got through unscathed thanks to some double plays and well-timed strikeouts as he went 6 7 0 0 0 6 to improve to 6-1, 2.68. In fact with Tyler Glasnow's recent bad run of starts the case can be made that Lynch has been their most consistent starter this year, pretty good for a guy who didn't have a rotation spot when the season started. This one was scoreless until the bottom of the 6th when the Rays finally broke through against Mendez. With one out Brandon Marsh doubled, was singled in by Vidal Brujan, and then Brujan was singled in by Austin Meadows, now with 41 RBI and among the league leaders, and in the 7th they added a run when Alec Bohm doubled and scored on a Ronaldo Hernandez sac fly. Meanwhile, with 2 lefties due up and Alvarado unavailable, Will Smith came in and got a 1-2-3 7th and with it 3-0 Sandy Gaston got his first high-leverage opportunity in the 8th. It did not go well. He gave up two hits and a walk to score a run without retiring anyone and Ian Hamilton as he did in a previous game got a double play grounder and then the third out to escape the inning with a 2-run lead. With Jasseel De La Cruz also unavailable, Nick Anderson pitched the 9th and in a bit of an odd turn for him got 3 flyballs and no strikeouts to nail down his 2nd save of the year.

May 30: Activated C Keibert Ruiz from the 10-day IL, optioned C Chris Betts to AAA Durham.

Good to get Keibert back, although the C position has been an offensive black hole this season as compared to the last two years where it might have been the best in MLB. Ruiz himself is only 279/331/385 with 1 HR and 12 RBI in 31 games, and Ronaldo has struggled as well, going 179/172/304 with 1 HR and 10 RBI himself. If these guys can get going, this team really could go on a run.

Game 4: It's tough to sweep a team in a 4-game series, and even tougher when you only score one run as the Rays lost a tough contest 3-1 to the Angels today. It was 1-1 going into the 9th and Jasseel De La Cruz came on for the Rays. After striking out Anthony Rendon to start the inning he gave up a blast into the RF stands by Anthony Rizzo, then gave up a single to Jo Adell who stole second and scored on a Marcus Semien single. Ken Giles didn't blow the save like he did on Monday, getting the Rays 1-2-3 and striking out Nick Schnell, the man whose 3-run HR off him gave the Rays that walk-off win, to end the game. They wasted a great performance from Dustin May, who went 7 3 1 1 2 8 and only allowed a Billy McKinney homer. The offense had a hard time against another lefty, Patrick Sandoval, only breaking through in the 3rd to go up 1-0 on a Keston Hiura RBI double. Hiura nearly put them ahead 2-1 in the 7th but Spencer Torkelson was thrown out a home on his single. Ian Hamilton pitched a perfect 8th to keep the tie intact, but ultimately the lack of offense doomed them tonight.

Team record: 33-17. Next up: A tough weekend series in Minnesota, where the Twins are off to a 31-15 start and the clear class of the AL Central.