[Art Deco]

Game 1: Hallelujah, the losing streak is over. The Rays scored 6 times in the 3rd to go on to rout the Royals 9-3. Mack Anglin finally picked up his first MLB win, although it wasn't a Picasso on his part as he went 5 9 3 3 0 6. The BB/K was nice but he was way too hittable. Aaron Ashby (who had to leave after 1 2/3 with a dead arm and will be out 6 days) and Steven Casey (2 1/3 1-hit innings) finished it out in fine fashion. In the 3rd after Brandon Marsh singled with one out, Vidal Brujan tripled him home, scored on a Wander Franco single, and after a Judson Fabian groundout, Lewin Diaz finally came through with a double to score Wander, Nick Gonzales had an RBI single, and Victor Caratini capped things off with a 2-run single of his own. They tacked on 3 more in the 6th on a Fabian RBI double, a Diaz sac fly, and a Keston Hiura RBI double. Wander and Gonzales each had 3 hits on the night. The win was important because Baltimore stayed boiling lava hot with an 8-4 win over Boston.

June 2: The scheduled game tonight was rained out, and will be made up as part of a doubleheader tomorrow.

June 3: Traded C Victor Caratini to the Kansas City Royals for LHP Ben Bowden. Optioned P Mack Anglin to AAA Durham, activated C Keibert Ruiz from his rehab assignment at AAA Durham.

This is one of those trades where the players just walk over from one clubhouse to the other as of course we're in KC right now. Bowden is a lefty reliever I've always liked, he used to be Colorado's closer and has decent stuff. KC retained 100% of his salary so we come out $2M ahead to give us $10M to play with. Anglin going down is a paper move since OOTP doesn't give us an extra man for doubleheaders.

Game 2: The Rays ripped the Royals again 11-0 in the first game of their doubleheader, with Matt Manning utterly dominant in a 7 4 0 0 2 12 performance as his up-and-down season hits an up note today. Manning is now 4-3, 4.87. Brandon Marsh had a big day (or first half of a day) with 6 RBI. He had an RBI single in the 2nd, an RBI groundout in the 6th and a grand slam (#5) in the 9th. Hunter Bishop had the key hits with an RBI double in the 2nd and an RBI single in the 3rd as the Rays broke it open early. Ben Bowden made his Rays debut and had to leave after retiring one batter with a stiff neck which is a minimal DtD for 4 days so we may have him pitch through it if needed. Steven Casey and Nick Frasso completed the shutout. The Rays had 18 hits for the day as Marsh had 3 as did Keston Hiura (with 2 RBI) and Vidal Brujan with Bramdon Perez the only player not to pick up a hit.

Game 3: The second game of the doubleheader was looking good early as the Rays built a 5-2 lead in the 5th and took a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the 7th, but the once-untouchable duo of Nick Anderson and Jose Alvarado combined to allow 6 runs in their 2 innings as the Rays lost 9-5. Anderson is beginning to lose his stuff, he started the year at 80, was downgraded to 65, and was downgraded again to 60, and after putting the leadoff man on in the 7th he gave up a 2-run HR to Dustin Peterson to tie the game. He got through the inning (but needed a DP) and then Alvarado gave up a HR to the leadoff lefty, Juan Pablo Martinez, an imploded from there, giving up a 2-run double to Peterson as part of a 4-run meltdown. Asa Lacy had started, and he was pretty terrible, going 4.2 11 3 3 1 2 and from that line you can tell he was lucky to have only allowed 3 runs. Liam Hendriks got him out of a bases-loaded jam with a whiff, and pitched a scoreless 6th. The bullpen wasted a great game from Wander Franco, who hit a 2-run HR in the first (#13) and also doubled and tripled. Triston Casas also homered (#3), Nick Gonzales was 2-3 with an RBI double and Keston Hiura was 2-5 with his own RBI double. And yes of course Baltimore won (and they won last night) to make it 8 straight and 19-3 in their last 22 to pull within 4 games.

Team record: 35-17. Next up: Tomorrow is the amateur draft and the start of 4 games in Minnesota.