First off, some not-so-surprising-news:
Game 1: Alec Sachais continues to do his thing and the Rays keep hitting the longball as they routed Boston 7-0. The rookie righty was masterful once again, going 7 3 0 0 1 9 and is now 12-2, 2.27. In a normal year, we'd be talking potential Cy Young, but he's at best the #3 starter on the team. He got his support today with more homers, as Yordan Alvarez led off the 2nd with #27 and Jhon Diaz followed shortly after with a 2-run blast (#18). Nate Clark continued to wield a hot bat with #35 to lead off the 6th, and they tacked on two more on a Keibert Ruiz single later in the inning. The final run scored when Alvarez hit into a double play. Jeremy Bowers went two scoreless innings to complete the team shutout.
Game 2: The Rays routed the Red Sox again with a rare double-digit outburst at the Trop 15-5. Joe Barker hit a 2-run shot in the 2nd (#9) to kick off the scoring, and Ricky Widmar added #17 in the 3rd to make it 3-0. Then the bases became turnstiles for the Rays in the 4th and 6th innings as they scored 5 and 7 times respectively. When the dust settled, Keibert Ruiz had a 5-RBI night with a 2-run single and bases-clearing double, Isaac DeLeon was 3-4 with 3 RBI, and Jhon Diaz was 4-5 with 2 RBI. Somehow Nate Clark lost his invitation to the party and was the only Ray not to get a hit, going 0-4. The struggling Shane McClanahan got the start and pitched great over the first 5 innings, allowing only 1 run and whiffing 5. But a bad sequence in the 6th marred his final numbers, as he gave up a couple of hits for a run, and then a 3-run HR to Ryan Mountcastle, so he ended 7 5 5 5 1 5 and saw his ERA rise to 4.55. Christian Chamberlain pitched the final two innings without incident.
Game 3: Mack Anglin pitched his best game of the year and the Rays got the better of an old friend in today's 5-1 win over the Red Sox. Anglin was in a bit of trouble over the first 2 innings but escaped with one run allowed and then settled down to go 7 4 1 1 1 8, with his 72 game score a season-best. He improves to 9-4 and finally gets his ERA under 5 at 4.94 after that series of brtual starts after he came back from injury. Speaking of pitchers coming back from injury, Tyler Glasnow missed the first half of the season with an ulnar nerve entrapment, lost some of his stuff coming back (he was downgraded from 70 to 60 stuff to be precise) and hasn't been the dominating pitcher he was with the Rays and in his first season in Boston. Still, he was shutting out the Rays through 4 until they got a couple of big hits in the 5th. Jhon Diaz, who leads in the AL in WPA, confirming my sense he always seems to come through in the clutch, doubled to lead off the inning and scored on a Mike Lammers triple, the just-recalled rookie's first MLB RBI. Lammers came home on a Ryan Jeffers groundout to give the Rays a 2-1 lead, and then Diaz launched #19 with a man on in the 6th to make it 4-1. Yordan Alvarez's RBI double in the 8th made it 5-1, as Daniel Espino and Jose Alvarado each had a scoreless inning in relief of Anglin. The Rays' magic # for clinching the division is down to 5 now.
Team record: 94-33. Next up: A day off, and then Philadelphia comes to town for a 3-game weekend series, giving the Rays a chance to avenge two of their tougher losses of the season in Philly earlier this year. It could also be a World Series preview as the Phillies are in control of the NL East. This reminds me, it's been a while since I provided the updated MLB standings, so here you go:
As you can see all the divisions are spoken for except the wild, wild NL West where it's a 3-team race with the 2 teams not in first in the lead for the wild card. There isn't even much of a wild card race in the AL, with Minnesota a near-lock and the Yankees holding a 2 1/2 game lead on 3 teams. As far the leaders go, Gavin Lux is leading the AL in WAR to put himself in the MVP race, while the Little/Sachais/Money trio is dominating the pitching categories and also are 1-2-3 in pitcher WAR, which is cut off in the graphic above.