April 8: Placed P Aaron Ashby on the 60-day IL with biceps tendinitis, recalled P Christian Chamberlain from AAA Durham.
This move gives us 2 open spots on the 40-man, not sure when or if we'll need them but good to have flexibility-wise. Unlike last time when Patten was up, I'm going with the lefty Chamberlain to give us 4/4 L/R balance in the pen.
Game 1: It was a tense and tight pitchers' duel between Mack Anglin and Cleveland's Matt Thompson that went 1-1 into the 9th before the Rays came away with a 2-1 win. The only damage against Anglin was a 2-out run which scored on a wild pitch in the first, and he shut Cleveland down for the next 7 after that, ending 7.2 7 1 1 0 4 as they swung quite a bit early in the count. Meanwhile, Wander Franco's 2nd HR of the year (the second of his 3 hits) in the 3rd accounted for lone Rays run going into the 9th. Jose Alvarado got the final out for Anglin after he gave up a 2-out double and the Rays made him a winner in the 9th when Spencer Torkelson led off with his 2nd double of the game and scored on a Keibert Ruiz single. With lefties due up in the 9th Alvarado stayed on and pitched around a 1-out Tyreque Reed double to preserve the win. Anglin, meanwhile, has been excellent in his first 3 starts and now sports a 1.35 ERA through 20 innings with a 4/17 BB/K ratio.
Game 2: Power was the word of the day in the Rays' 10-3 win over Cleveland. Power as in 5 Rays HRs and power as in the power pitching of Christian Little, who whiffed 11 Cleveland batters in 5 2/3 innings. Little gave up a Gerardo Perdomo homer in the first to give Cleveland a brief 1-0 lead but the hitters had other ideas in the top of the 2nd. Spencer Torkelson went deep to tie it, Keibert Ruiz blasted a 2-run shot, and - you guessed it - Triston Casas went back-to-back with Keibert with his 4th of the year and it was quickly 4-1. And in the 3rd Tork went yard again with a man on to make it 6-1, giving him 4 on the year. They kept pouring it on as Keibert went deep again, giving him his first 2 homers of the year and a 4-RBI night. The 10th run came on a Yordan Alvarez sac fly but he was 0-4 on the night and continues to struggle, down to 148/226/222 in 54 AB this year. Our 1B jinx is approaching drummer-in-Spinal-Tap or Defense-Against-The-Dark-Arts-professor levels if we've even broken Yordan Alvarez. Anyway on the mound Little ended up 5.2 7 2 2 0 11 and did make it briefly interesting in the 6th when he left with the bases loaded, 2 out and the score at 8-2. Evan Godwin got Bobby Bradley on a foul pop to end that threat and departed the game when the lead was extended to 10-2. Christian Chamberlain made his season debut and looked much better than in his brief appearances last year, with 2 perfect innings and 3 Ks. Hayden Johns allowed a run in the 9th but it was unearned due to a 2-out Casas error. Speaking of Casas, he's now 10-23 with 4 HR and 12 RBI and most impressively has only struck out 3 times, this being a guy who's whiffed 280 times in 854 ABs in his career.
Game 3: The Rays beat Cleveland by the absurd score of 24-9 today, with Hunter Bishop's grand slam in the 1st and Spencer Torkelson's in the 5th the big blows. The Rays got 5 in the first off Cleveland ace Kantaro Yokoyama, then exploded for 10 in the 5th and scored 9 more runs after that. I'm just going to append the Rays hitting section of the box score rather than go into any more detail. You might think from that score that Asa Lacy pitched poorly but he didn't, going 6.1 7 3 3 0 4 with the final run of his allowed to score by Mike Bayley. No, it was Bayley, Hayden Johns and Christian Chamberlain that let Cleveland score 6 more runs in the late innings with none of them pitching well. Anyway, here are the details of the offensive damage:
What I want to know is how do the Rays score 24 runs, Vidal Brujan plays the whole game with 3 hits, and he doesn't score a run? (He was picked off in the first and Wander did erase him on a force play in another inning, but still)
Game 4: It's never easy to sweep a 4-game series, let alone one on the road, but that's what the Rays did in a 7-5 win over Cleveland today. Trailing 3-0 in the 5th against Luis Castillo they rallied for 3 to tie it and then 4 more in the 6th after a Cleveland error with two out and nobody on, before withstanding a Cleveland rally in the 9th. Triston Casas (who else?) kick-started the comeback with his 5th HR and later in the 5th Vidal Brujan's 2-run single tied it up. And in the 6th former Ray Jake Bauers booted Patrick Bailey's grounder with two out and nobody on and they went single-double-single-single-single to score 4 times with Brandon Marsh's 2-run double and RBI singles from Brujan and Yordan Alvarez. Shane McClanahan started and put them in an early hole with a couple of HRs allowed but settled down to go 6 6 3 3 2 7 and go to 2-1. Steven Casey pitched a 1-2-3 7th but Evan Godwin gave up a HR to cut it to 7-4 in the 8th. Jose Alvarado came in for the save with lefties due up but struggled, allowing a hit and 2 walks and another run to make it 7-5 but got the final out with the tying runs on base for his first save of the season. But despite winning 5 straight and going to 12-4 the Yankees swept their series in Oakland and they're still a game behind the 13-3 boys from the Bronx.
Team record: 12-4. Next up: 3 at home vs Houston with old friend Nick Frasso scheduled to start the third game.