Rays 6, Blue Jays 2
Record: 96-64
Attendance: 16,348. Rogers Centre.
The Rays won for the 96th time this season and with the Indians' loss to the Washington Nationals it turned out to be the magic number putting them into MLB's postseason playoffs for the first time in six years, for the first time in the Kevin Cash Era, for the first time since Traitor Joe Maddon abandoned us. It was a sweet victory for everyone in the Rays family. And it was all done with the smallest payroll in all of baseball. Damn right we're proud of them!
They had a 90-win season in 2018, but it wasn't enough to earn a spot in the postseason hunt. That was the same year that began with a wholesale change of personnel that had sparked so much criticism it was hard even for the long-suffering faithful to root for them. It looked like the front office had written off the entire season even before it had even begun. But Cash managed to put together the players who survived the purge and turn them into a very competitive team that by season's end was so good that not many teams wanted to face them. Still, they fell short.
Not this time. This time they went into game 160 with 39 people on the roster, and they all seem to be contributors. Some of them had been on the IL so long that they had missed most of the season, people like Brandon Lowe, Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell. Add Joey Wendle to the list of walking wounded who brought late life to the lineup.
Friday's game was typical of the Rays Way. Tommy Pham, the hard nosed tough guy who hates to smile, put them ahead in the third with his 21st home run with one man on. An inning later Willy Adames singled in another run. But in the seventh inning, Rays pitching gave up a two-run homer to Blue Jay center fielder Teoscar Hernandez to narrow the lead to 3-2. But the Rays, scoreboard watching as the Nationals were beating the Indians, scored two in the eighth for a more comfortable lead--and suddenly for the first time all year, it began feeling inevitable that they would win--the game and the postseason wildcard berth.
That inevitability showed itself in the eighth when the second run of the inning scored--on a strikeout. As Adames struck out to end the inning, the ball squirted past the catcher and went all the way to the backstop, which gave Adames just enough time to beat the throw to first, which squirted away again allowing Nate Lowe to score from third. Were the Rays destined to win the game and the postseason berth? After that play, even I was willing to entertain the possibility.
The Rays post game show continued late into the evening covering the champagne and beer party in the visitor's clubhouse interspersed with soggy interviews with young men being boisterous.
A one-game playoff with the Oakland A's will be hard-fought and unpredictable, but the Rays have definitely got the A's attention. They won't be looking forward to taking on Kevin Cash's crew.
The Rays aren't finished yet.
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