Rays 5, Mariners 4
Record: 68-50
Attendance: 33,895
The new streak is two. The Rays after losing nine straight games to the Mariners in Seattle, have now won two in a row. Perhaps even more surprising, they won another one-run game--not their strongest suit in this odd baseball season that began with two months of sterling baseball followed by a two month tailspin when they stunk up the place. And now again, they have begun to look like a team that needs to be taken seriously.
This one was especially gratifying, Charlie Morton getting the win and going six innings and a hundred pitches. His last outing was cut short by manager Kevin Cash, who later regretted the move. This time, Charlie took a victory lap, raising his record to 13-4, which ought to put his name in the conversation for the 2019 Cy Young award. That of course will depend on the rest of August and September, but for now everyone in Rays-Land is happy for the lanky old man who has quietly anchored the pitching rotation all year.
Colin Poche and Nick Anderson both pitched clean innings, Anderson striking out the side, and Emilio Pagan, who seems to have emerged as the unannointed closer of the team, earned his 11th save and has shown a swagger and confidence that was absent earlier in the year. Again, a gratifying development,.
Finally there was Mike Zunino in his first return series against his former club. He hit his eighth HR with two men on in the fifth inning. This has not so far been the season either Zunino or the Rays had hoped he might have. He got off to a very slow start, then caught fire for a while before going on the IL. When he got back he had lost his swing again and suddenly found himself struggling to get playing time because his emergency replacement started tearing up opposing pitchers, Travis d'Arnaud.
But on Saturday night, the trade that brought Zunino to the Rays seemed solid, and if he keeps it up he could resume his full-time occupation of the catching position because he is by far the best catcher on the team defensively.
There were two other homers, one from Kevin Kiermaier, his 12th, and one from Avasail Garcia, his 16th. The Rays went scoreless in seven of the nine innings and only managed seven hits in all, but this time they turned out to be just enough to narrowly prevail against a scrappy Mariner team that was celebrating Edgar Martinez night now that he has finally been admitted to the Hall of Fame.
The Rays saw their record improve to 18 games over .500 for the first time this year, and can sweep the Mariners with a win on Sunday, when, with their starting rotation missing Blake Snell, Taylor Glasnow, and Yonny Chirinos, they will call on Ryan Yarbrough to be a true starter instead of a bulk man. It will be the Mariners who will go to an opener and a bulker for the second game in a row.
Despite the criticism Cash got for inventing a new way to employ a depleted pitching staff, it has caught on around the majors. He seems destined to be a major league manager for a long time, maybe even one of the great ones, but inventing the opener and bulker strategy may be his greatest legacy to the game. Predicting the future is hazardous duty, of course, so it is just as likely that Cash and his strategy will crash and burn after its initial run of success. However, I'm betting the trailer money that Cash and his strategy will be honored by baseball for decades to come.
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