June 28: Sent P Mack Anglin to AAA Durham on a rehab assignment.
Mack is back, he'll get 1 or 2 rehab starts at Durham as he was gone for only a month.
Game 1: The Rays looked dead and buried in this one, trailing 4-0 after 5 1/2 with only 3 hits through the first 5 innings, seeming like another game in the Trop where the offense couldn't rub two sticks together. But thanks to 2 runs in the 6th and 3 more in the 8th, and some solid bullpen work the Rays secured a come-from-behind 5-4 win. Early on it didn't look good as Matt Manning was having a mediocre start, giving up 3 HRs including something we didn't see often last year, Lewin Diaz homering in Tropicana Field. A 2-run shot in the 4th by Anthony Rendon and a solo blast from Mike Trout in the 6th made it 4-0 and Manning left with a 6 7 4 4 2 5 line. In the bottom of the 6th after Yordan Alvarez walked, Judson Fabian tripled off the RCF wall and scored on a Hunter Bishop single and it was 4-2. Liam Hendriks came on and retired all 5 Angels he faced with 3 on whiffs including Mike Trout. With lefty Shohei Ohtani looming, Mike Bayley came on and got him looking to end the 8th. Then the bats went to work. Vidal Brujan and Wander Franco doubled to cut the lead to 4-3, and Fabian doubled to tie it up before Keston Hiura singled up the middle with 2 out to score Fabian with the winning run. JDLC came on for the save and got the Halos 1-2-3 for #11 and the Rays made the win probability chart look like a stock market crash. Bayley picked up his first Rays win.
Game 2: As The Who sang, "the kids are alright". Tampa Bay's two splashy callups, Nate Clark and Jack Leiter, were the stars tonight in a 2-0 Rays win that was their 12th in 13 games. Leiter pitched 6 solid if not dominating innings and Clark's 4th inning solo blast to LF (#3) was the winning run. Leiter had the BABIP gods on his side as he only struck out 3 and allowed 6 hits, but most importantly he didn't walk anybody and he kept the ball in the park. After Leiter gave up a leadoff single to Anthony Rendon in the 7th, he was pulled after 82 pitches for Evan Godwin with three lefties coming up. Godwin got all 3, Jack Filby was more like Jack Filthy in a perfect 2K 8th, and JDLC came in for the second straight day to close things out, striking out the side around a walk. Leiter is now 2-0 in his 2 starts and JDLC gets save #12. Wander Franco got the pen a little breathing room with HR #14 in the 8th as he continues hot while the rest of the offense struggles to score at home, but tonight it was enough. The Yankees lost so the lead is back up to 10 1/2.
Mack Anglin rehab update: A bit of a rough go for Mack as he wasn't that sharp and ended up 3.2 8 6 6 2 3 on 74 pitches. The line was a bit deceiving because he did allow 4 infield hits so he wasn't like he was hit hard, but he still wasn't that sharp so he'll get another start. No need to rush him with the way things are going. Durham still ended up winning 19-6 with a pair of 8-run innings in the 3rd and 5th. Mike Lammers, acquired in the Gustave D'Elia trade over the weekend, went 3-3 with 2 walks, and 6 RBI including a grand slam.
Game 3: Back and forth we went at the Trop before the Rays finally pulled off another 8th-inning comeback to beat the Angels 6-5. They led 3-1 after 5 behind Blake Money but the Rays had Money problems in the 6th as he walked the first 2 batters of the inning and Mike Bayley gave up a 2-run single to lefty Luis Gonzalez to tie the game. And after Steven Casey came on in the 7th, he yielded a 2-run HR to Mike Trout to give LA a 5-3 lead. But once again the bats came alive in the 8th inning. First, after Yordan Alvarez beat out an infield single, Judson Fabian drilled an opposite-field 2-run HR (#8) to tie the game. And two batters later Triston Casas deposited HR #12 into those same RF seats to give the Rays the lead. With JDLC unavailable after pitching the last two nights, Jose Alvarado came on and got a 1-2-3 9th inning to earn save #4. Casey stuck around and got through the 8th to pick up his 1st win of the year. Money looked good before he lost it in the 6th and ended up 5 2 3 3 5 4 after the 2 runners he left on came around to score. Earlier in the game Wander Franco supplied most of the offense with a 1st inning solo HR (#15) off Shohei Ohtani and an RBI single in the 2nd. Alvarez had a sac fly in the 5th to score the other run. The Yankees lost in Baltimore to fall 11 1/2 back, so we're at that time again where I'm not going to bother giving updates on the division lead unless the Rays start losing a bunch of games and it gets down to like 8 or something like that.
Game 4: I wrote out a recap and hit the wrong button and lost it and now I don't want to have to write the whole damn thing again. Short version: Rays came back from a 6-0 deficit with yet another 8th inning rally to tie it at 6 before losing in 12, 8-6. Christian Little gave up 6 in the first 3 innings on a pair of homers but settled down and ended up 6 5 6 6 1 8. Hayden Johns went 2 1/3 perfect, Jack Filby pitched a nice 1 1/3 before Jose Alvarado took over in the 11th and stayed on to get two out in the 12th but gave up a single. He was lifted at 26 pitches with righties up and Liam Hendriks came on and was terrible, giving up 3 straight hits to score the 2 winning runs. The 8th inning comeback started with HR #13 from Triston Casas, then a Nate Clark RBI triple followed by a Wander Franco single to erase a 6-3 deficit. Franco, Judson Fabian and Keibert Ruiz drove in runs earlier despite their hitting into double plays in each of the first 4 innings (2 by Yordan Alvarez, 2 by Casas).
Team record: 60-29. Next up: How much more American can you get than spending the July 4 weekend at Wrigley Field? We'll find out as the Rays play 3 with the Cubs.
And we had this happen in MLB today:
