Game 1: Johnny Soland pitched his best game of the season and the Rays kept on rolling with a 5-3 win in their series opener in Oakland. MLB's only 20-game winner from last season went 6 5 2 2 1 5 to improve to 3-2, 5.54 and four relievers held the lead late with Freddy Zamora getting the final out for save #7. Jimmy Leonard was 3-4 and blasted a pair of homers to give him 7, Josh Alexander continued his power surge with a 2-run shot for #6, and Luis Barela hit his 10th for some 9th-inning insurance.
Game 2: Jose Mendoza followed up Johnny Soland with his best outing of the year as well, going 7 3 0 0 1 10 in a 7-0 Rays win over the A's. The lefty's dominant outing got him to 3-1, 4.33, and Sean Forbes went the final 2 to complete the team shutout. Josh Alexander hit his 5th homer of the week and 7th of the year, Josh Beckett added his 4th to go with an RBI triple, and Doug Johns hit a 485-foot 2-run blast to dead center for his 5th.
Game 3: Someone pour some water on Josh Alexander as he hit his 5th homer in 4 consecutive games and 6th of the week in a 9-2 rout of Oakland to give the Rays a sweep of Oakland and a 7-0 road trip. Alexander added 2 singles and drove in 3 for the day while Jimmy Leonard added a 3-run shot (#8). Dave Frick was 3-4 with 2 doubles and an RBI as well. Jim Brophy wasn't quite as dominating as his recent starts but plenty good enough at 6 4 2 2 3 3 to improve to 5-0, 1.63.
Team record: 29-7. You'd think with that record the Rays would have at least a 6-7 game lead and more likely a 9 or 10-game lead in the division, but the Blue Jays have been just as hot lately and sit only 3 games back (2 in the loss column) at 25-9 as they've taken 11 of their last 12. Next up for us: An off-day then back home for 3 against the Yankees.
This came as absolutely no surprise:
