Saturday, June 29. Game 83. Second half starts now, pretty soon in Montreal, which will get the best of every baseball season, forevermore, while we get the meaningless April-May games every season. Forevermore.

Rays 5, Rangers 2

Record:  47-36

Attendance:  16,655


While you are wrapping your head around the idea that when the split seasons start we will never get another home game that means anything, take a moment to enjoy Brendan McKay's spectacular debut performance as a starting pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday.

Which is a little surprising because he's only 23 and looks younger with his peach fuzz and pink cheeks, and because he does not look as big as his listed 6-2, and because he does not light up the radar gun with 95+ fastballs.  He looks very human, like a regular pitcher, even though he's made the majors in two brief years of minor league experience in five increasingly competitive leagues.

And there he was Saturday on the mound at the sixth and most competitive level, the major leagues. And lo and behold, the kid turned out to be special after all.  Some in the Rays family found his pregame routine for  this first major league start notable for the young man's calmness.  Dewey Robinson, the Rays minor league pitching coordinator put it this way in the Tampa Bay Times:  "It's the poise, the confidence , the low heartbeat.  Everything about him is so controlled and looks so easy."

All he did in his first game was retire the first 16 men he faced, that's five and a third innings, before a broken-bat bloop single broke up the no-hitter and put a man on base.  He got through the rest of the inning unscathed, but that was the end of his day, six innings, one hit, one walk, 81 pitches.  His next test, the Yankees this Friday.

Oh and there was some offense that should be noticed, like Willy Adames' continuing improvement.  For a lot of the first part of the season, he had more than a few questionable at-bats, base running decisions, and erratic throws to first.  Saturday, he reached a new milestone by hitting his first home run at Tropicana Field, his tenth overall.  He average is up to .253, his OBP is .319, and he has 26 RBIs.  The rest of his game is improving too, and his infectious exuberance sparks every play every day.  He's fun to watch day after day.

Avisail Garcia hit his 12th homer of the year, and Travis d'Arnaud hit his fifth.  Considering how unlikely an addition d'Arnaud was to the roster as a desperate last minute replacement for the injured catching corps, he is becoming almost indispensable to Manager Kevin Cash's nightly lineup.  Nice work.  Almost as surprising as Brendan McKay.

Next up:  Blake Snell tries to break the spell Cy Young put on him.