Rays 11, Blue Jays 7
Record: 11 - 3
Attendance: 17,326. A good opportunity for a respectable Toronto crowd to see the best team in baseball right now. Of course they turned out to see the Rays on a Friday night. Why wouldn't they?
It was no contest until suddenly it was. By the end it was just a mess.
The Rays got off to a huge 8 - 0 lead, which they took into the bottom of the 7th when reliable Yonny Chirinos gave up six runs. The Blue Jays added another run in the 8th before the Rays put it out of reach with three runs in the 9th. It was a blowout, a nail biter, then a semi-blowout again. It will look like every other win when the season is over and the final numbers are in, but it wasn't like many other games you've ever seen.
The offense was sensational, banging out 16 hits, including five home runs, two each from leadoff DH Austin Meadows and 2B Brandon Lowe, plus an add-on two-run shot in the 9th by Willy Adames, who continued his hot hitting. Both Meadows and Lowe hit identical 436-foot homers into the right field upper deck, the first time in the same game that has ever been done in the 31 years the Blue Jays have been in the domed Rogers Centre. In fact, according to the Tampa Bay Times, there have only been twenty balls ever hit in the 500 level in all those years. There were more high fives than a Little League game.
Avasail Garcia extended his hot hitting in Chicago by getting three more hits. Willy Adames, two. (Both were also plunked by pitches, which raised a few alarms and dampened the feel-good confrontation with the Jays new manager and long-time Ray, Charlie Montoyo.)
And the pitching was sensational too, except for the 7th inning. Ryne Stanek pitched a perfect two innings with three Ks as the opener. Ryan Yarbrough pitched the next two innings perfectly (for the win), and then came Chirinos, who pitched well in the 5th and 6th before melting down in the seventh for six earned runs. Adam Kolarek and Diego Castillo came on to finish the 7th and Castillo got through a harrowing eighth when he gave up an unearned run (on a hit, a couple of walks, a wild pitch, and an error). Then with the game on the line, Castillo struck out power hitting PH Rowdy Tellez and then with the bases loaded, he got C Luke Maile, who, took three balls before taking three strikes. High fives were by then a thing of the past.
If you're a baseball purist, you might have enjoyed the way the game balanced out and finished up in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings. Great fun, I can hear people saying approvingly. But if you root for either of these teams, it was pure agony toward the end.
In the midst of the mess, Tommy Pham continued his on-base hitting streak to 46.
The Rays are throwing Blake Snell tomorrow against veteran righty Clay Buchholz Should be more fun. If you can take it.
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