[Art Deco]

Game 1: Rays hitters took a quick liking to Chase Field as they belted 5 homers on the way to an 8-3 win over the Diamondbacks. Wander Franco hit 2 more today to up his season total to 19, putting the Rays on the board in the 1st and tying the game in the 5th with a pair of solo shots. And Keibert Ruiz went deep for the first two times this season, involved in two back-to-back jobs. His first came after Wander's in the 5th and gave the Rays the lead to stay, and he hit his 2nd in the 7th with Wander on to make it 6-2, which was followed by Judson Fabian's 16th as the Rays RF tried to snap out of his mini-slump. Brandon Marsh and Vidal Brujan had RBI singles for the other 2 Rays runs. Matt Manning had another fine start, giving up his 2 runs in the 3rd but little outside of that, going 7 8 2 2 1 7 to improve to 5-3. Liam Hendriks gave up an unearned run in the 8th and proceeded to load the bases, but Evan Godwin got him out of it, pitching the final 1 1/3 with 3 whiffs. Baltimore won't go away, winning again to stay 5 back.

Game 2: The AI told me that Wander Franco, Keibert Ruiz, Keston Hiura and Brandon Marsh were all tired, so it was time for Nick Gonzales, Patrick Bailey, Triston Casas and Jhon Diaz to play. The makeshift lineup didn't miss a beat as the Rays downed the D-backs 7-2. Like yesterday the Rays trailed 2-1 going into the 5th, but rallied to take the lead for good in that inning. They were assisted by a bout of wildness from Arizona starter J.B. Bukauskas, who walked the bases loaded and then gave up an RBI single to Hunter Bishop and wild-pitched the go-ahead run home. After walking Jhon Diaz to re-load the bases, Bailey stepped up and drilled a grand slam to RCF, his 4th HR of the season to give us our final score of 7-2. Tyler Glasnow was in cruise control from there, going 7 6 2 2 0 9 to improve to 7-2, 2.91 with a league-leading 92 whiffs in 77 innings. Asa Lacy, whose turn in the rotation was skipped due to an off-day, pitched the final 2 innings without incident. Vidal Brujan was on base 4 of 5 times today with 2 hits and 2 walks and is now 322/415/452, quite a contrast to last year's first-half struggles. And I almost don't need to mention that Baltimore won again.

Game 3: The Rays completed the sweep of Arizona with a hard-fought 5-3 win. All the Rays' scoring came in the first two innings when they jumped on Diamondback starter Corbin Martin for 5 runs and 9 hits. Lewin Diaz had an RBI single in the first, but for the third straight game in the series Arizona took a 2-1 lead only this time the Rays didn't wait until the 5th to erase it. Instead they tattooed Martin for hit after hit and it all started with Shane McClanahan, who helped his own cause with an RBI single to tie it, followed by a Wander Franco RBI groundout, and RBI singles from Keibert Ruiz and Judson Fabian. Mac did it with his arm as well as his bat, and although he allowed a run in the 6th to get Arizona within 2, he ended up a very solid 7 5 3 3 1 8 to go to 6-2, 3.55. Jose Alvarado was sharp whiffing a pair in a perfect 8th, but Jasseel De La Cruz made it interesting in the 9th, allowing singles to the first two hitters, getting a pop-up from former Ray Yusniel Diaz, then a groundout to 1st to allow both runners to move into scoring position. But he got pinch-hitter Steven Kwan (hitting .442) to fly to shallow left to end the game and pick up save #10. All in all, an impressive road trip that followed a hideous 7-game losing streak which included the last 5 at home. They went to KC, Minnesota and Arizona, all with solid winning records, and came out 8-2. And they needed to as Baltimore no longer seems to lose, winning again tonight to stay 5 back.

Team record: 41-18. Next up: Their first off-day in about 3 weeks, followed by 3 games at home against Houston and Yordan Alvarez, who already has 31 HR (!). Maybe we'll just walk him every time up.