Stayin' alive...
Joe Ryan pitched his heart out and the Rays scored twice in the 7th to break a 2-2 tie, taking a 4-2 win and sending their ALDS back to St. Petersburg for a decisive Game 5 in two days. Wander Franco, who is now 12 for 20 in the series, tripled for the third of his three hits tonight, driving in a pair to give the Rays the season-preserving win. Ryan, meanwhile, was excellent in going 7 4 2 2 1 7 with a Miguel Sano 2-run homer the only damage against him. With Nick Anderson unavailable after going 2 innings yesterday, Diego Castillo came in and pitched around a couple of runners to fan 3 Twins in the 8th and Ken Giles nailed down the save. Earlier the Rays got runs on a Willy Adames (hitting a cool .563 in this series himself) RBI double and an incredibly impressive 490-foot blast from Ji-Man Choi into Target Field's upper deck in RCF. So we head back to the Trop with Tyler Glasnow looking to rebound from a rough Game 1 start.
The other DSs:
We move closer to a possible Freeway World Series as both the Dodgers and Angels advanced to their respective LCSes. Marcus Stroman was the postseason hero again after throwing a no-hitter last season for the Mets. Today he shut out the White Sox for 8 2/3 to win the series for the Angels while the Dodgers got three in the 9th including a tie-breaking 2-run pitch-hit single from Matt Davidson to eliminate the Padres. And Milwaukee has moved to within one game of ending the Mets' title defense and getting revenge for last year's NLCS.