Game 1: Tyler Glasnow took the mound today with a chance to win 20 games in a season for the first time in his career (his 2023 Cy Young season with 17 wins was the only time he had won more than 13), and he ran with it despite minimal offensive support in a 2-1 win over Houston. Glasnow might have pitched his best game of the season, going 7 3 1 1 0 11, only being dinged for Yordan Alvarez's 50th HR of the season in the 4th inning. The performance also got his ERA under 4 as he finishes 20-6, 3.99 with a 50/233 BB/K ratio in 196.1 innings. He'll also end up with his third AL strikeout crown after leading the league in 2020 and 2024. Jose Alvarado had a 1-2-3 8th and with lefties Alvarez and Kyle Tucker and their combined 76 HR and 245 RBI this year due up in the 9th, Evan Godwin got the call and set them down in a 1-2-3 inning for save #3. The Rays only managed 5 hits on the night but 3 of them were enough for the two runs. Keibert Ruiz tripled (!) with 2 out in the first and scored on an Austin Meadows single, and Keston Hiura hit HR #22 in the 2nd off Jairo Solis. The win was the team's first since clinching the division in Baltimore on Saturday, snapping a 4-game losing streak. The Angels were off so we go into the final 3 games of the season with a 2-game lead for the #1 AL seed.
Game 2: In another game that saw almost all its scoring come in the early innings (with a run in the 5th to decide it) the Rays beat Houston again 5-4. Mitchell White got the start and after a 1-2-3 1st inning looked his recent shaky self allowing 4 runs in the 2nd. But he sort of settled down from there. He still put baserunners on (only one other 1-2-3 inning) but was the beneficiary of 3 double plays as he went a mediocre 6 7 4 4 3 2 to pick up win #11. Aaron Ashby was outstanding, pitching a scoreless 7th & 8th and whiffing 5. After the two-inning stint he might be done for the season with only 2 games left so if that's it I want to salute him for a great comeback season after missing most of 2024 with surgery. He put up a 2.39 in 49 innings, walking 12 & whiffing 60, and finally becoming the lefty beast I foresaw him being after acquiring before the 2023 season where he struggled for most of the year before getting it together come the run to the World Series. Jasseel De La Cruz, shaky himself the last few outings, pitched a perfect 9th (although not without a Jesus Sanchez ball hit to deep left) to grab save #32. The offense mostly came in the bottom of the 2nd when the Rays answered Houston's 4 with 4 of their own. The bench was emptied today, but Patrick Bailey had an RBI single, Nick Gonzales (3-4, will he ever stop hitting? let's hope not) had a 2-run double and Greg Jones had an RBI single to tie it up. And after a two-out Alec Bohm double in the 5th, Triston Casas (2-4 today to get the average up to .199, we'll keep playing him to try and get him over the Mendoza Line) delivered an RBI single for what turned out to be the winning run. Also in our milestone watch, Spencer Torkleson was 0-3 with a walk today as he remains one RBI short of 100. The Angels pounded Texas to stay two back for the top seed, meaning our magic # there is 1 (actually it may be 0 as I believe the tiebreaker is season series, which the Rays won 5-1).
Austin Meadows extension negotiations update:
Hahahahahaha! Let's face it we're not signing Meadows, he wants too much $ and term and he's now on the wrong side of 30. Nick Schnell is back next season, plus we have Kjerstad, and Bishop's acquitted himself well this season. Nor does Tork have to DH, he can play a decent OF himself. So a Schnell-Marsh-Bishop OF will work, with Tork in the mix and perhaps Kjerstad or Bramdon Perez. And despite his poor numbers at AA Montgomery a look under the hood (the editor) shows that Jhon Diaz is still very capable of playing in the bigs, he's a 60 RF and could get a look. So no shortage of OFs even without Meadows. By the way for anyone who's been following along through the years of this save, here's an update on all the young OFs we traded in the 2023-24 offseason when we had that ridiculous glut: Alex Kirilloff has been mediocre in Detroit, .240-10-64 with -0.1 WAR, Yusniel Diaz in Milwaukee,.235-17-69 with 0.1 WAR, JJ Bleday (who went from SD->KC->COL) .216-16-53 with 0.1 WAR, and the big exception to all of them, Trevor Larnach in Pittsburgh who's having a monster season after missing most of 2024 with injuries: .277-35-126 with 3.7 WAR. That was the guy we should have kept out of all of them.
Game 3: With nothing to play for on this final regular season weekend, it was milestone time as Shane McClanahan looked for his 10th win, Spencer Torkelson his 100th RBI, and Triston Casas for some base hits to get the average over .200. None of them achieved their goals in 2025's penultimate regular season game but the Rays won an excellent pitchers' duel 1-0 on a Keibert Ruiz walk-off single in the bottom of the 9th. Mac was great (7 6 0 0 1 8) but unfortunately for him picking up a win Jonathan Loiasiga was even better (7 1 0 0 2 5) with Tork's single off him in the 2nd the only base hit he allowed. Tork had a shot at RBI #100 in the 4th when Brandon Marsh reached on an error and ended up at 3rd with 1 out but George Springer threw Marsh out at home attempting to score on Tork's fly ball. Casas, meanwhile, went 0-2 and in the second at-bat he took a called 3rd strike which he took exception to and was thrown out of the game. He'll need at least a couple of hits tomorrow if he wants to get over .200. Mac, meanwhile, ends his season 9-6, 3.19 with 190 whiffs in 192 innings and is the King of the No-Decision, with 18 of them in his 33 starts this year. As far as the game went, Jose Alvarado had a perfect 8th and Nick Anderson survived a walk in the 9th to get a couple of whiffs, setting the stage for the bottom of the 9th. Vidal Brujan led off and reached on an Isiah Kiner-Falefa error at 3B, stole second (#79) and after Brandon Marsh flied out, Ruiz singled to right and Brujan beat Will Benson's throw home to make the Rays a winner and assure them of having the best record in the AL where they'll play the winner of Cleveland and Baltimore in the ALDS.
Game 4: The bench got emptied again, Daniel Lynch got the start, and unsurprisingly the Astros won 6-1. Lynch showed why he had become the forgotten man of the staff and exiled to Durham, going 4 8 4 4 3 2 and failing in his bid to grab a spot on the postseason roster. Dustin May followed him and looked good until he gave up a 2-run HR to Carlos Correa, so he was 3 1 2 2 1 4 in his extended relief outing. The milestones didn't pan out - Spencer Torkelson was 0-3 with 2 walks and had 2 great opportunities to get RBI #100 with two men on in each of his last two at-bats but he struck out in the first instance and flew out to center to end the game, while Triston Casas was 0-3 and finished at .196. The lone Rays run came courtesy of Heston Kjerstad's 2nd HR, who impressed in his limited ABs in September going 375/423/667 with 2 HR in 24 AB, as many as he hit in 111 AB with the big club last season. His ability to hit righty (he's a switch-hitter) and play a decent CF make him a good candidate to make the roster next year. Anyway, another regular season is in the books and the Rays' bid for their third straight pennant and 2nd World Series win in 3 years soon begins.
Final Regular Season Record: 96-66. Next up: A post with the final stats, standings, etc. and then the Rays will host Games 1 and 2 of the ALDS against the winner of the Cleveland-Baltimore Wild Card Game.
MLB note: Evan Fitterer of the Miami Roughnecks, who famously threw a 144-pitch no-hitter as a rookie a couple of years ago, threw another one today against the Washington Nationals. This time around it only took him 100 pitches and he would have had a perfect game had he not hit Victor Robles with a pitch as he ended 9 0 0 0 0 6.