Game 1: The win streak now sits at 12 after an 8-4 victory over the Dodgers in LA. Nate Schultz went 6 4 2 1 0 3 to improve to 18-2, 3.12 and along with Kevin Kerstetter at 19 wins, the Rays have a shot at having 3 20-game winners after Nate Thompson achieved the feat. Omar Rodriguez led the offense with a pair of homers and 3 RBI, giving him 29 and 99 on the season, and Danny Ayala is heating up again hitting #51 with a pair of RBI to give him 147. Jon Jimenez contributed a 2-run single. Mike Wherry went two scoreless innings in relief of Schultz before Edgar Rios surrendered a 2-run homer in his inning of work.
MLB News: A couple more former Rays retired. Mebrys Viloria, whose picture you'll see if you look up "backup catcher" in the dictionary, was our backup for the second half of the season in 2024 after he came over with Jack Leiter in the deal which sent Ronaldo Hernandez and Ian Lewis to Kansas City. More significantly, Dustin May hung up the cleats. May pitched parts of 4 seasons with us from 2023-2026, in and out of the rotation with 2024 his best season going 9-4, 3.22 in 18 starts before missing most of the second half of the year with a herniated disc. We dealt him to Washington in the 2026 season (not getting much) and he went on to have a few good years with the Nationals but never turned out to be the star pitcher he was touted to be when he first came up with the Dodgers.
Game 2: The Rays took a 5-0 lead then had to hang on to win 6-5 over the Dodgers to extend their winning streak to 13. It looked like a cakewalk with Leo Ortega no-hitting LA through 5 innings and shutting them out through 6, but Ortega gave up a homer in the 7th and put a man on, and Billy Hoyte gave up only his 2nd homer of the year to former Ray Brandon Marsh to make it 5-3. Bo Angeac's 27th HR made it 6-3 in the top of the 8th, and Jim Golunski got the Dodgers in the bottom of the inning, but in the 9th Kikuo Kawase put men on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out, both of whom scored, before escaping the inning with save #38. It was the first time Kawase had allowed 2 runs in an outing since way back on April 6. Ortega improved to 11-5, 3.00 with his 6.1 3 2 2 0 6 outing. The Rays had built up the 5-0 lead with the longball as Dayle Jenkins hit #17 and Omar Rodriguez hit his third in two days, giving him nice round numbers of 30 HR and 100 RBI, and Angeac had an RBI single.
Team record: 123-30. Next up: An off-day then back to Tampa for a possible ALDS preview as Boston visits for the weekend.
Pennant race update: The only race left in MLB is the NL wild card, and nobody seems to want it at the moment:
If there were more time left in the season the run by the Nationals would be impressive, but it's likely too late.
Update: All three lost again on Thursday while Washington was idle.
Durham Playoff Update: Durham's bullpen crapped the bed in their IL championship series opener, turning a 7th-inning 3-2 lead into a 12-3 loss. Mike Champagne pitched well and left win men on 1st and 3rd with 2 out in the top of the 7th up 3-2, but Greg Baldwin came in, wild-pitched the tying run home, walked the next two to load the bases, then hit a man, and Rob Ratzlaff gave up a couple of doubles and it spiraled out of control from there. They'll try to even the series behind Jimmy Stevenson tomorrow.