Fastball

Tampa Bay Rays Make Team History with Win on Thursday

The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Oakland Athletics 4-3 on Thursday to split the four-game series. In doing so, the Rays recorded their 50th win of the season and made some team history.

Brady Farkas

Tampa Bay Rays Make Team History with Win on Thursday
Tampa Bay Rays Make Team History with Win on Thursday /
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The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Oakland Athletics 4-3 on Thursday afternoon, and with the win, the Rays split the four-game series that started with them dropping the first two games.

The team with the best record in baseball also made some franchise history with the win.

Per ESPN Stats & Info:

The Rays are 50-22 this season, the fewest games to reach 50 wins in franchise history.

What a season it's been for Tampa Bay, who leads the American League East by 5.0 games over the Baltimore Orioles. The Rays own the best winning percentage (.694) by more than 60 points over the O's (.632), who have the second-best winning percentage in the league.

The Rays scored the game-winning run in the eighth inning on Thursday against Oakland courtesy of a Luke Raley home run. It was his 12th homer of the season.

The Rays will stay out West and play the San Diego Padres this weekend. Former Rays pitcher Blake Snell will pitch against Tampa on Sunday.

The lefty spent five years in Tampa, winning the American League Cy Young award in 2018. He went 21-5 that season with a 1.89 ERA. He also made the All-Star team.

He also was an integral part of the Rays 2020 team that advanced to the World Series and lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Lifetime, he's 59-52 with a 3.44 ERA.

First pitch on Friday night will be at 9:40 p.m. ET as Shane McClanahan (10-1, 2.18 ERA) pitches against Yu Darvish (5-4, 4.30 ERA).

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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