[Art Deco]

Game 1: Marc Wagner had his first rough start of the season and Texas's Edwin Harty bedeviled the Rays' bats for 7 innings as the Rangers took a 6-3 win to open this 4-game series. A couple of former Rays did the key damage with Wander Franco's 2-run double in the 3rd and Keston Hiura's 2-run homer in the 6th helping to put the Rays in a 5-0 hole they never got out of. Wagner ended 5.2 8 5 5 2 6 in suffering his first loss of the year. The Rangers added a run in the 7th off Jon Whiteleather before Mike Mooney pitched 2 perfect innings with 4 whiffs to finish out the game. Offensively they were shut out by Harty until the 6th when Nate Clark stayed hot with his 3rd homer in 2 games (#7). Connor Kirkley added a 2-run shot off the Texas bullpen (#5) in the 9th to make the score a bit more respectable. While Clark, Victor de Jesus (2-4 with a double) and Kirkley remain red-hot, the combo of Joe Barker, Bobby Witt and Luis Corpus was 1-11 today and all three have seen their batting average plummet into the .220s. Meanwhile the Yankees continue to play great baseball at 19-10 and are now within 4 games of the Rays.

Game 2: The Rays bounced back with a strong performance from Andy Aparicio and a couple of early homers to beat Texas 4-1. AA was a little less pitch-efficient than usual, nearly doubling his season walk total of 4 in a 6 4 0 0 3 9 performance but impressive nonetheless against a very good Rangers lineup. He's 3-0 now and lowers his ERA to 1.80, moving into 2nd in that category in the AL and 2nd in WAR as well. Tim Siqueiros was impressive in two scoreless innings of relief even if he uncharacteristically didn't whiff anyone, but Evan Godwin crapped the bed in the 9th, loading the bases with nobody out with a pair of walks and necessitated Jordan Diaz to clean up his mess. Diaz started auspiciously by walking the first man he faced to force in the lone Texas run but got a fly ball and two strikeouts to earn save #5. All four of the Rays' runs came in the first two innings with Nate Clark continuing his HR binge by going deep for the third straight game with #8 in the 1st before Jasson Dominguez hit a 2-run shot (#6) in the 2nd. They put a couple of more runners on and Ricky Widmar brought one in with a sac fly for the fourth run. Joe Barker and Bobby Witt Jr. each took the collar again as their slumps continue.

Game 3: He nearly did it again. After pitching a no-hitter last season, and being a pitcher who regularly has no-hit stuff, Christian Little flirted with his 2nd career no-hitter before Nico Hoerner singled off him with two out in the 8th. At that point it was the only suspense left in the game as the Rays clocked the Rangers 13-0 tonight. Little would have been pushing it into the 9th as unlike in his previous no-hitter Hoerner's single came on pitch #117 of the game and had he made it into the 9th his pitch count would have ended up in the 130s. He came out after that hit and finished 7.2 1 0 0 1 9 to move to 5-0, 3.32. Jon Whiteleather got the final four outs, including striking out the side in the 9th. The offense teed off on a couple of former Rays properties who never quite made the big team. Al Jackson, whom Texas took from us in the Rule 5 Draft last winter, got the start and although he had been pitching well that came to an end tonight after 7 runs and 11 hits in 4 1/3 innings. Several slumping hitters had their coming-out parties tonight, starting with Joe Barker, who doubled to start the 2nd and later tripled and singled to miss the cycle by a homer. After Jasson Dominguez reached, Rodolfo Rivas finally hit his first homer of the year to make it 3-0 and later in the inning Dane Ayers, giving Connor Kirkley a rest, picked up where CK left off by launching HR #3. Ayers continues to produce big-time in limited at-bats and is now 380/446/620 in 50 at-bats after tonight's 3-5, 3 RBI performance. Rivas added 2 more hits and 2 more RBI for a 5-RBI night and Jakob Runnels, who hasn't hit much as the backup catcher, blasted a grand slam off Chris Youngpeter whom the Rays traded to Texas last year along with Carlos Perez in the Brad Ballmann trade. The slumping Bobby Witt Jr was also on base 3 times tonight with a single and two walks. Now it's Ricky Widmar's turn to scuffle as he was 0-5 tonight and 0-13 in his last three games. He'll likely get a day off tomorrow to get Ayers back in the lineup.

Game 4: It was a pitching matchup between Alec Sachais and reigning AL Cy Young winner Victor Presas but a pitchers' duel it was not as both were gone in the middle innings as the Rays took a back-and-forth game with Texas 7-6. The hero today, as he's been much of the season, was Connor Kirkley. First he hit a 2-run homer in the 6th to put the Rays back ahead 5-4, and after Texas came back to tie it at 6 in the 7th, Kirkley hit his second homer of the game in the bottom of the 8th, #7 overall, to provide the winning run. He was 3-4 and is now a cool 380/500/680 in 100 at-bats this young season and is second in the AL with 2.3 WAR. Going into last season Kirkley looked like the weak link in the lineup which is partly why we dealt for uber-prospect Jaiden Hardaway (raking at Durham to the tune 304/392/452 himself and ready for the bigs), but he had a big year last season (especially in the 2nd half) and has been a clutch playoff performer so once again we've got a surplus. Anyway as for the game, Texas went up 2-0 on Sachais in the 1st before we rallied for 3 in the 4th against Presas including a 2-run shot from Rodolfo Rivas, suddenly getting hot. Texas went back up 4-3 in the 6th, knocking Sachais out as he was on the wild side today going 5.2 5 4 4 4 4 with a hit batter. Tim Siqueiros came on and was in line for a win when Kirkley's first homer put them back on top but he gave up a pair of runs in the 7th, the first he's allowed since April 9 which was the only run he had surrendered this season. Brad Ballmann came in against his former team and went 4 up, 4 down through the 8th and he picked up the win, his first of the season. Jordan Diaz gave up a leadoff single in the 9th to Bobby Owens who got greedy and was thrown out by Nate Clark trying to stretch it into a double. Diaz then got Wander Franco and Adrian Ramos to end the game and register save #6.

Team record: 26-6. Next up: The Yankees come to town again for four. They're our closest pursuer at 6 games back after losing 2 of 3 to Baltimore this weekend yet are an impressive 20-12 and 3 1/2 up in the wild card race.