June 30: Released P Aaron Ashby.
He cleared waivers but refused a minor league assignment, so he's now a free agent. Hasta la vista, Aaron. UPDATE: Ashby signed a minor league deal with Pittsburgh.
Game 1: The "at" is in parentheses above since the Rays were the road team at the Trop for Game 1 of today's doubleheader vs the Royals as it was a makeup of a game rained out in Kansas City. It was weird seeing them bat first at the Trop, but it didn't affect the hitters any as they bashed four homers in an 11-4 rout of the Royals. Gavin Lux led the charge with another 2 dingers and 5 RBI, giving him 20 for the year. His 2-run HR in the third after Jhon Diaz hit #13 to lead off the inning gave the Rays a 3-2 lead they'd never relinquish, and he added a 3-run blast in the 8th to complete the rout. Yordan Alvarez also hit #20, a 2-run HR in the 7th, as part of a 3-RBI day. Nate Clark had a sac fly and Diaz an RBI single for the other runs. This was plenty of support for Jack Leiter, back in the rotation after a couple of relief outings. Leiter had his usual game with a great BB/K ratio (0/11) but 4 runs allowed in 7 innings on a 2-run triple and a pair of solo HRs as his homer-proneness continues with 20 now allowed in 89 innings. Christian Chamberlain pitched 2 perfect innings to close out the game.
Game 2: Alec Sachais continued his run of dominance as the Rays swept the doubleheader from Kansas City with a 6-1 win. He went 8 4 1 1 1 9, allowing only a Hunter Bishop homer, to go to 7-0 and lower his ERA to 2.09, which now leads MLB as he's finally pitched enough innings to qualify. Judson Fabian, whom I mentioned in the midseason report card was due for more homers, hit #9 leading off the 2nd, and Bobby Witt Jr singled in a run later in the inning to give Sachais all the run support he'd need. Of course, they added to that with RBI singles from Ryan Jeffers and Nate Clark, a bases-loaded walk to Joe Barker, and a run on a wild pitch. Connor Kirkley, getting a rare start, was on base 3 times with 2 singles and a walk and scored a run. Jeremy Bowers pitched the 9th and had a chance to have a 4-strikeout inning when his first whiff came on a wild pitch allowing the runner to reach. Alas, the final batter grounded out so Bowers had to settle for a 3-K inning, giving him now 7 in 2 2/3 innings spanning his first 3 Rays appearances.
Well here's a scary development for the rest of the league. As if Christian Little wasn't already dominating enough:
Some monthly awards, befitting a team that went 20-5 in June:
Sachais was also named AL Rookie of the Month.
Game 3: Christian Little took a no-hitter into the 7th inning as the Rays cruised to yet another victory, 8-2. Former Ray Xavier Edwards singled leading off the 7th to break up the no-no and another former Ray farmhand Ian Lewis singled home Edwards to cost Little the shutout (or more accurately, 7 shutout innings). Little ended up a still-brilliant 7 2 1 1 1 12 to improve to 8-3, 2.23. It was the 5th straight start and 7th in his last 8th in which Little picked up a win. Jack Filby gave up a run in the 8th and Evan Godwin pitched a scoreless 9th to end it. The big hit of the game came in the 2nd inning when Ricky Widmar hit his first MLB grand slam, HR #7 of the year, to turn a 1-0 game into a 5-0 one. Luis Berdin's sac fly had put them on the board earlier, and Keibert Ruiz, Gavin Lux and Nate Clark each had RBI singles. Lux continued ludicrously hot, going 3-4 with a double and a steal as well to raise his BA over .300 for the first time this season at .304.
Game 4: The winning streak continues as the Rays made it 9 straight with a come-from-behind 4-3 win in 10 innings over the Royals. The winning run came when yet another former Ray on the Royals, Mitch Keller, issued a walk-off walk to Yordan Alvarez after he had already walked 2 earlier in the innings. We got to extra innings because Nate Clark hit HR #21 off still another ex-Ray, Luke Little, in the 8th inning. Blake Money got the start and finally saw his perfect run of winning starts since joining the rotation end at 11, mainly thanks to a 3-run HR he allowed in the 2nd inning to Coby Mayo. Money was solid after that, going 7 2 3 3 4 5, and at least avoided his first loss of the season when Clark hit his homer. The bullpen was on today, with Daniel Espino pitching a scoreless 8th, Jasseel De La Cruz going 1 1/3 and Jose Alvarado getting the final 2 outs in the 10th to pick up win #3. Earlier Clark doubled in a run in the 6th before a second run scored on a wild pitch in that inning, getting the Rays back in the game. Before then they were being shut down by KC's Daniel Tillo, one of the better pitchers of the decade, but the AI inexplicably took him out after 5 innings and only 58 pitches so the Rays went to town on the Royals pen. Meanwhile, now that it's ended, here's a game-by-game look at Money's amazing streak:
Game 5 (seems weird typing "Game 5"): All of the buzz around Tampa Bay and MLB has been about the Rays' "young guns" - Christian Little, Blake Money and Alec Sachais - but 31-year-old vet Shane McClanahan has every right to say "what about me?" as he waves his Cy Young Award over his head. And the wily McClanahan was in charge today, going 7 6 1 1 1 7 in a 6-3 win over Kansas City to sweep the unusual 5-game series and make it 10 wins on the trot. With the win Mac goes to 8-2 and is now an astounding 45-13 over the last 2 1/2 seasons. On the offensive side of things, Gavin Lux continued his unconscious hot streak with two
more HRs today, the first putting the Rays on the board in the opening frame and the second (#22) making it 3-0 in the 3rd. Bobby Witt Jr, against his old team, had his best game of the year since the 2-HR, 6-RBI game early in the season by going 3-4 with a double and his own solo HR (#11) in the 4th as the Rays scored a single run in each of the first 4 innings (Keibert Ruiz's RBI single in the 2nd was the other one). Luis Berdin later added a sac fly and another run scored when Witt made his only out of the day and hit into a twin killing. Christian Chamberlain came on for the 8th and made a bit of a mess, allowing two runs, one of which resulted from a Ruiz fielding error. Jeremy Bowers got him out of it by whiffing Khalil Lee with the bases loaded and the score 6-3. Jasseel De La Cruz came on for the 9th and put a couple of men on to make it interesting again but got out of it for save #15. By the way, it's been a while since I mentioned the division race, mainly because there isn't one as the Yankees are now 18 games behind as they might as well be in the International League. Soon I'll throw out the magic # but we're barely into the second half and it's already down to 60. Lux, meanwhile, is as hot as they come. His average dropped to .254 on June 3, and since then he's gone 38 for 87 (.437) with 10 HR and 20 RBI. He now leads the AL in WAR at 4.1 and is third in the majors behind Juan Soto and Columbus's Victor Mesa Jr.
Team record: 61-23 (50-10 since late April). Next up: Who better to play on July 4 than the team from our nation's capital? The Nationals come to town for a pair and the scheduled starter (after we just faced a team that seemed 50% former Rays) is another ex-Ray, Dustin May. He's had two very good years with Washington since we dealt him there in early 26, but has struggled this year at 2-5, 6.10.