June 7: Sent 3B Bo Angeac to AAA Durham on a rehab assignment.
Game 1: Arizona's flame-throwing righty Manny Garza fanned 9 Rays in 5 innings (and the Rays struck out 15 times in total) but Tampa Bay slugged 3 homers off him in a 4-2 win at Chase Field. Daniel Vasquez (#12) and Jon Jimenez (#6) had solo shots in the 2nd and 3rd before Omar Rodriguez took Garza deep with a man on for his 12th of the season in the 5th. Those were enough runs for Danny Romero, who was excellent today at 7 4 2 2 1 8 to improve to 6-2, 3.13. Kikuo Kawase made things interesting in the 9th by putting a couple of men on but recovered to strike out 3 for save #14.
Game 2: The Rays picked up another win behind strong pitching and timely hitting as they downed the Diamondbacks 5-0. Tim Gates tossed 6 shutout innings and improved to 7-2, 3.38, Mike Wherry got him out of a jam in the 7th and the recently-struggling Jeff Reece turned in two scoreless innings to complete the shutout. On offense the bats were beneficiaries of 9 walks to go with 8 hits but it wasn't until the 5th on Jaiden Hardaway's 2-out RBI single that they got on the board, and Daniel Vasquez gave them some separation with a 2-run 6th-inning double. Danny Ayala added HR #15 for good measure in the 7th.
Game 3: It's become a bit of a thing with the Rays dropping the final game of a series once again as they were bested in a wild one 8-7 by Arizona. It looked like a sweep was in offing when they put 4 up in the top of the first off Arizona ace Mario Rojo with a 2-run Omar Rodriguez triple the big hit. But Jeremy Curtis didn't have it, allowing the Diamondbacks to tie it in the bottom of the inning and needing 59 pitches just to record four outs before he gave way to Kevin Kerstetter. KK wasn't much better, allowing a pair of homers for Arizona to go up 7-4 but Jon Jimenez hit a 2-run shot (#7) to cut the lead to 7-6. Another run off Kerstetter made it 8-6 and Daniel Vasquez homered again (#13) to cut it back to one but they couldn't get any closer. Also my prediction of Eric Titcombe homering against us did not come to fruition.
Team record: 41-18. Next up: An off-day then we return home for the series of the season against the Houston Astros as it's a rare case in mid-June where someone has a better record than us but they do at 43-18 thanks to a couple of more games played. As for the guys we traded them, we won't be seeing Jim Golunski (out for the year), Danny Medina (out for a month) and Jon Soranno (suspended).