Game 1: He did it again: Andy Aparicio twirled his third shutout and fourth complete game of the season in a 5-0 win over the Yankees. Aparicio, who moved to 19-2 and lowered his ERA to 1.60, went 9 5 0 0 2 7 on 126 pitches in the gem. His injury proneness is listed as "Iron Man" and he has 70 stamina so he's one pitcher I have no problem riding as long and hard as possible. And with the shutout he's now up to 8.3 WAR, which leads all of MLB including hitters, so the case can be made he's not only the AL Cy Young frontrunner, but a legit MVP candidate as well. All 5 Rays runs scored on homers, as Nate Clark wreaked havoc against his old organization by going deep twice with a 2-run shot in the 1st and a solo blast in the 6th, giving him 35 HR to go with 127 RBI. Bobby Witt Jr hit #15 in the 4th and Victor de Jesus launched #22 in the 7th.
Meanwhile, I'll never understanding scouting in this game:
News: Former Ray Heston Kjerstad has retired, last seen playing for Detroit's AA team. While Kjerstad made limited contributions to the Rays as a player, playing in 45 games over parts of 3 seasons, he's had a major impact on the franchise as it currently stands. If you've followed along all these years, you'll recall he was traded in 2026 to Texas for then-propsect Ricky Widmar along with pitcher Hayden Johns. We all know how Widmar's turned out but Johns brought us Rodolfo Rivas in trade from Philadelphia a couple of years ago as well. And Kjerstad himself was acquired for veteran Mike Minor back in 2022, as his trade tree has been the OOTP version of the guy who traded a paper clip for a house. Also retiring was veteran reliever Kevin Ginkel, best known to us as Toronto's closer who helped eliminate us in 2021 and 2022 and whom we could never seem to beat in his time with the Jays. Finally, one-time Rays phenom Joe Ryan retired. Ryan came up and was a sensation in 2021, with
his MLB debut against Toronto (scroll down to the end of the post) legendary in this save. He was a regular in the 2022 rotation but gave up 50 HR(!) in 172 IP and suffered a torn UCL 9 starts into the 2023 season, which would be the last time he'd pitch in the majors. He spent the last 6 years in the Washington organization before finally hanging it up.
Game 2: The Yankees got to Alec Sachais for four runs and took a 4-0 lead in the 5th, but as has been so often the case a 4-run deficit proved to be little more than a speed bump for the Rays as they went on to drub New York 9-4. In the bottom of the 5th the Rays batted around and scored six runs with the big blows a 3-run homer from Dayle Jenkins (#16) and a bases-clearing 3-run double from Rodolfo Rivas. And they added 3 more for good measure in the 7th on an Eloy Jimenez sac fly (he continues to hit, but has gone the month of September without homering so Bonds and McGwire are safe) and a 2-run shot from Rivas (#17) to cap a 5-RBI day for him. Sachais hung in there and went 7 6 4 4 1 8 to go to 14-8, 3.44 while Evan Godwin and Nate Thompson closed out the game with scoreless innings.
Game 3: For the second straight night a Rays starter struggled and put them in a 4-0 hole, but unlike last night the bats couldn't quite complete the comeback in a 4-3 loss. In his first bid to set the Rays' single-season wins record, Jon Hayes didn't have his best stuff (or his best concentration as he balked in a first-inning run, can't remember the last time a Rays pitcher did that), giving up an early homer and although he hung in there for 5 innings with only 2 runs allowed, he yielded a 2-run homer to light-hitting Yankee 2B Pat Todd in the 6th and finished 6 8 4 4 3 2 and dropped to 21-4, seeing his ERA rise for the first time in a long time (to 2.79). Tim Siqueiros, Jon Whiteleather and Nate Thompson did their jobs keeping the Yankees off the board the rest of the game, and it looked like we might have a replay of last night when Joe Barker hit a 2-run HR (#27) in the bottom of the 6th to halve the lead and Jasson Dominguez doubled in a run in the 7th to make it 4-3. But a 1-2-3 8th doomed them as well as the failure to bring Dayle Jenkins home in the 9th when he reached 2nd with one out.
Team record: 113-32. Next up: Baltimore arrives in town for four games.