Rays 2, Yankees 1 (11 innings)
Record: 27-16
Attendance: 43,079
The Rays won their first extra inning game of the year and only their third one-run game while racking up eight losses. And they did it with grand style, Brandon Lowe tying the game with a homer in the seventh, Austin Meadows winning it in the top of the eleventh--and Jose Alvarado, who was hit hard yesterday to lose the game, coming through in the clutch to earn his fifth save in the bottom of the eleventh.
If Meadows' eleventh-inning heroics weren't enough, he also cut down Aaron Hicks with a laser from left field to the plate in the sixth inning. If he hadn't done that, there wouldn't have been an eleventh inning.
The pitching was nearly perfect from start to finish, Blake Snell going six innings and giving up one run on six hits and a walk, and striking out nine on 93 pitches. Roe (one walk) and Kolarek combined for an inning; Pagan threw two innings striking out five; Hunter Wood pitched a perfect tenth for the win; and Alvarado finished it up. These guys are more often on than off--three cheers for the bullpen. Charlie Morton gets the ball tomorrow for the rubber game in this set against the Yankees.
Every day these Rays put yesterday behind them and come out to play a new ball game. Resilient yes, but tough as nails at the same time. They don't get bullied. They believe in themselves. They are not intimidated by the AL East--maybe they should be, but they aren't.
But take heart Portland. During a Q and A, Tampa Bay Times's Marc Topkin asked Rays' principal owner Stu Sternberg about attendance at the Trop: "And he had an obvious, though potentially ominous, answer: 'There are ramifications.'"
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