[Art Deco]

Game 1: On a night the offense couldn't get much going against Detroit's Kumar Rocker, Shane McClanahan took charge and threw a 2-hit shutout to lead the Rays to a 2-0 win. Mac was in some early trouble, putting 4 baserunners on in the first 2 innings, but got out of it and rolled from there, going 9 2 0 0 4 7 on 119 pitches. From the 7th on, he was basically one batter away from coming out for a reliever, but he retired the last 10 batters of the game to stay in there. He's now 9-3, 3.64 for the season. All the offense the Rays would get (and need) came via a 3-batter sequence with two out in the 4th. Spencer Torkelson singled, Hunter Bishop doubled him home to extend his hitting streak to 22 games, and Keston Hiura singled home Bishop. The Rays got no break from Baltimore, which is now on a 38-9 run and still 3 1/2 back.

Game 2: The Rays received another dominant pitching performance, this time from Tyler Glasnow as they shut the Tigers out once again, this time by the score of 4-0. Glasnow took a 1-hitter into the 8th with a 3-0 lead, gave up a couple of singles with two out but whiffed Austin Martin on pitch #119 to get out of the inning and leave at 8 3 0 0 1 9 to improve to 9-2, 2.62 and take pole position in the AL Cy Young race. Jose Alvarado gave up a couple of singles to start the 9th but got a double play and a whiff to end the game. Facing the Rays on the mound for Detroit was old friend Shane Baz, and he pitched fairly well in defeat. Spencer Torkelson and Keston Hiura hit doubles in the 2nd for a run, Keibert Ruiz's sac fly scored run #2 in the 3rd with help from a Detroit error, and Hunter Bishop made it 23 straight games with a hit by launching HR #10 to RF in the 4th, a solo shot. Lewin Diaz had an RBI single in the 8th to round out the scoring. The win was important because Baltimore may never lose, as they won in 10 tonight in Seattle 4-3.

Game 3: Mack Anglin pitched well again as the Rays took care of the Tigers for the 7th time in 7 tries this season 7-3. Judson Fabian drove in Wander Franco with a single in the 1st, and Brandon Marsh had an RBI double in the 2nd, and the game stayed 2-0 as Anglin was dealing against Detroit. He left after giving up a 2-out double in the 7th, and Mitchell White took over and allowed a double of his own to get Detroit within 2-1. Anglin ended 6.2 3 1 1 3 9 and improved to 5-1, 3.86. The Rays got that run back in the bottom of the 7th when Marsh doubled in Bishop, who kept his hitting streak alive at 24 in his last at-bat. Jose Alvarado came on for the final out in the 8th, and then they blew it open with 4 in bottom of the inning on 2-run HRs from Keibert Ruiz (#7) and Spencer Torkelson (#24). Alvarado stayed on to pitch the ninth and gave up a couple of runs, with only one earned thanks to a Keston Hiura error but picked up save #3. The Orioles won of course as they're now 53-28 with the second best record in baseball behind our 56-24. Still miffed about that third game in Baltimore being blown.

Game 4: A long holiday weekend of quality pitching performances culminated in a 1-0 win over Detroit at the Trop to sweep the series and the season series from the Tigers. Former Tiger Matt Manning had the mound today, and although it was far from his best outing it still was effective. Manning went 6.1 4 0 0 6 5 with the 6 walks of course being the issue. They mostly came late and 3 of them came consecutively in the 5th to load the bases. But he got Danny Jansen to hit into a 4-2-3 double play to get out of it. Ben Bowden had perhaps his most impressive outing as a Ray in a string of them as he went 1 2/3 perfect innings with 3 whiffs to get through the 8th. Bowden has now pitched 14 scoreless innings since joining the team with 0 walks and 14 Ks. Jasseel De La Cruz got save #14, allowing only a 2-out single, while Manning goes to 8-4, 3.94. The offense? All of it came on the 2nd at-bat of the game when Wander Franco deposited HR #20 into the RF seats off Chris McMahon, who deserved a better fate holding the Rays to 7.2 6 1 1 2 7. A few regulars did sit, however, with Keibert Ruiz, Judson Fabian and Lewin Diaz all getting the day off. The only down note was that Hunter Bishop went 0-3 with a walk to see his MLB-season-high 24-game hitting streak come to an end as he struck out with 2 out in the bottom of the 8th. And believe it or not, Baltimore finally lost although it took a 2-run HR by Marwin Gonzalez in the 8th for Seattle to win it 4-2, so the lead improves to 4 1/2 games.

Team record: 57-24. Next up: 4 games at home vs the Angels.