Rays' Bats Finally Come to Life in 10-5 Rout of Blue Jays
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The every-day nature of a long baseball season forces players to learn to have short memories. "Flush it and move on'' is a phrase often muttered over the course of six months, but it really is true. And necessary.
Veteran Rays pitcher Corey Kluber said as much Wednesday night after the Tampa Bay Rays were swept by the Houston Astros. He made it very clear that the bad stretch would have absolutely nothing to do with Thursday night's game against the Toronto Blue Jays.
And he was exactly right.
The Rays, who scored only two runs in three days versus Houston, exploded for 10 runs against their American League East rivals and rolled to a 10-5 victory to start a critical four-game series with massive playoff implications. The top five hitters in the Rays lineup all had two hits or more, and all five drove in at least one run.
The Rays scored three runs in three separate innings, the first, second and fourth. It was only the second time all year that the Rays had done that. They scored three or more runs in different innings three times against the St. Louis Cardinals on June 8 as well.
"We did the right adjustments today, and hopefully we can continue on with this energy,'' said shortstop Wander Franco, who now has a nine-game hitting streak. ''I'm starting to feel more like I did at the beginning of the year, and luckily now I feel good.''
With the win, the Rays moved to 83-67 on the year with 12 games to go, and they are now just one game behind Toronto (84-66) in the wild-card race. They remain a half-game ahead of Seattle, which also won Thursday, and 4 1/2 games clear of the Baltimore Orioles, who beat Houston 2-0.
It was a weird game right from the start on Thursday. Toronto scored in the top of the first off of ''opener'' JT Chargois, which seemed perfectly normal because Houston did the same thing three games in a row, getting that first-inning run.
But what was different was that the Rays answered against the Blue Jays, and it seemed to invigorate the dugout. Rookie Jonathan Aranda led off the bottom of the first with a home run, his second of the year and the seventh lead-off homer of the year for the Rays.
Ryan Yarbrough came in to pitch the second inning and gave up two runs on solo shots by Teoscar Hernandez and Whit Merrifield, but the Rays answered right back again, scoring three runs of their own in the second. Ji-Man Choi got a one-out walk, and Aranda singled to right-center, sending Choi to third. He scored on an infield single from Manuel Margot and then Franco and Arozarena followed with RBI singles to make it 6-3.
Yarbrough came out to start the third, but felt some discomfort on his right side and couldn't go. It is feared he has an oblique injury, and will get further tests on Friday.
Garrett Cleavinger was pressed into duty, and the Rays bullpen dominated from there much like they often do on ''opener'' nights where all hands are on deck. Five pitchers covered the next six innings and allowed just one hit and striking out six.
The Rays scored three more runs in the fourth and added another in the sixth to continue to pile on. Aranda, Margot, Franco and David Peralta — who was playing his 1,000th major-league game, all had two hits. Arozarena was 3-for-4, with two runs scored and two RBIs.
"That's what good teams do, you turn the page and respond the way you should,'' Peralta said. "Aranda came up with the big homer, and we just said, this is the way this game is going to be. It's big (to have everyone hitting), and that's what we were supposed to do.
"To be honest, I had no idea that today was my 1,000th game. I'm just going to keep having fun and having a good time with the guys. (Arozarena and Franco), those are our guys. I think it's contagious. You see the homer and you go, you want to do your job too.''
The Rays chased Blue Jays starter Jose Berrios early. He's usually tough against the Rays, but he only lasted two innings and gave up six runs. It was his shortest start since Opening Day back in April, when he got knocked out in the first inning.
"Berrios has pitched us tough, but we had a lot of good at-bats tonight,'' Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said. "Johnny sets the tone with the leadoff homer, and that can set the tone in the dugout. There was a lot of impacting of the baseball. He fell behind a couple of times and we got into some good hitters' count.''
"We needed something to kind of jump-start us. Give the guys credit after what happened the last three days. They kept coming up with big hits.''
Turning the page is something this team does well. They proved that again Thursday night
"They do a good job of flushing it and coming in the next day and finding a way to win,'' Cash said. "And our bullpen was terrific. We called down there and said we were going to piece it all together. (Cleavinger) has been outstanding for us, and everyone else followed suit.''
Cleavinger pitched two innings and allowed just one hit. Shawn Armstrong, Brooks Raley and Colin perfect all threw clean innings and rookie Dusten Knight pitched the eighth, giving up just a single.
Toronto scored twice against Knight in the ninth after a walk and another Merrifield home run. But he got a pop-up from Cavan Biggio and he struck out Bradley Zimmer to end the game.
Knight, a former high school state champion wrestler, has been infamous for doing backflips after closing out a game in the minor leagues. But he didn't do it Thursday.
''No, these games are too important now,'' Knight said. "I can't be doing that up here. I just did it Sunday at Gwinnett, but I can't be doing that here. It's just too big.''
Yes it is. That's one down now against Toronto and now the Rays are 9-7 in the season series with three games to go. One more win will clinch the tie-breaker, which could be huge when it comes to playoff seeding.
The Two teams meet again on Friday night in a 7:10 p.m. ET start. Jeffrey Springs (9-4, 2.45 ERA0 will start for Tampa Bay. Mitch White (1-5, 5.05 ERA) will go for Toronto.
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Tom Brew is the publisher of Inside The Rays, and has been with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation network for three years. He is an award-winning writer and editor who has spent most of his four-decade career at the Tampa Bay Times, Indianapolis Star and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He has written four books.