Wizardly Walls helps Rays become first to 50 wins
OAKLAND — The Rays had already seen their three-run lead vanish by the point the A’s loaded the bases with no person out within the seventh inning Thursday afternoon. With Seth Brown coming to the plate towards lefty Jake Diekman, they had been maybe one well-hit ball away from shedding this four-game sequence to an Oakland membership with one of many worst data in baseball.
Oakland bought a well-hit ball, a scorching grounder off Brown’s bat that threatened to get previous Tampa Bay’s drawn-in infield. But second baseman Taylor Walls performed it completely, choosing the smash with an exit velocity of 107.9 mph and beginning a key double play that arrange Luke Raley’s tiebreaking homer within the Rays’ 4-3 win over the A’s.
“It’s typical Taylor Walls,” Raley mentioned, grinning.
With the victory, Tampa Bay turned the primary workforce within the Majors to win 50 video games this season. Only six different groups in MLB’s Wild Card Era (since 1994) have reached 50 wins as shortly because the Rays (50-22): Cleveland in 1995, Seattle in 2001, the White Sox in 2005 and the Yankees in 1998, 2018 and final 12 months.
Thursday’s victory didn’t come simply, nor did the sequence break up towards Oakland after Tampa Bay dropped the primary two video games. Taj Bradley’s 11-strikeout begin fizzled as he allowed three runs and didn’t end the fifth, then the Rays narrowly escaped the seventh and wanted Raley’s twelfth homer of the season to drag forward for good.
The Rays seemed to be in full management within the early going, constructing a three-run lead towards A’s starter Paul Blackburn whereas Bradley struck out the primary six batters he confronted and a career-high 11 general.
Coming off the shortest begin of his huge league profession towards the Rangers, Bradley put his dominant stuff on show whereas recording 17 swinging strikes on 88 pitches, together with 10 whiffs towards a fastball that averaged 96.8 mph on the day.
“He’s got four plus pitches. He knows how to pitch,” A’s second baseman Tony Kemp mentioned. “I think we just kind of figured out to try to get him in the zone as best we could to have better at-bats.”
The rookie lastly stumbled within the fifth, issuing a pair of one-out walks earlier than Esteury Ruiz reached on an Isaac Paredes error at third to load the bases. Ryan Noda put Oakland on the board with an RBI single, then Brown tied the sport and ended Bradley’s day with a two-run single to left. Reliever Kevin Kelly restricted the injury by forcing an inning-ending double play.
“Really impressed with Taj. It looked like a guy, a young pitcher that was kind of on a mission to reset himself from his last outing,” supervisor Kevin Cash mentioned. “He was so committed to the zone. Stuff was as crisp and powerful as we’ve seen. Stunk that we couldn’t get him the win.”
The sport practically bought away from the Rays within the seventh. With the bases loaded and the depend full, Diekman fired a fastball on the backside of the zone that Brown crushed at Walls, who was pulled in to the sting of the infield dust. Walls picked it and shortly reduce down the runner on the plate, giving catcher Francisco Mejía time to make a powerful throw to Raley at first.
“That ball was smoked, so I didn’t really have time to think about anything,” mentioned Walls, who jumped and pumped his fists after the essential 4-2-3 double play. “After I realized I’d gloved it clean, I knew that it was a chance for a double play, so just tried to get rid of it and give Frankie a good chance.”
Reliever Robert Stephenson accomplished the escape by placing out Brent Rooker with 4 straight sliders to strand runners on second and third. Right-handers Jason Adam and Pete Fairbanks retired the final six A’s batters, so the Rays simply wanted one huge hit. They bought it from Raley.
A day after breaking his bat over his knee in frustration, Raley broke out the lumber within the eighth. Anticipating a breaking ball after being bombarded with delicate stuff all sequence, the left-handed slugger caught a dangling curveball from former Rays reliever Austin Pruitt and launched it a Statcast-projected 410 ft out to heart area for the tiebreaking house run.
“I didn’t know if I was going to get it up over that wall, so when I saw it go out, very relieved just to give us back the lead,” Raley mentioned. “It was a hard-fought series, and for us to drop the first two and come back and win the last two, they’re two big wins.”
