Rays 5, Blue Jays 3
Record: 85-59
Attendance: 12,663
With 85 wins, the Rays need to win nine or ten of their remaining 18 games to secure a postseason position, but even with their current hot streak (winning 9 of their last 10), they face a tough road to get to 95 wins. After Sunday's game against Toronto, the Rays play six against the Texas Rangers and LA Angels, both teams playing under .500 ball with nothing to lose--so playing spoiler should be fun for them. At this stage of their seasons, there will be a lot of talent evaluation for next season going on, which means players will be doing their best to show they belong on next year's major league roster. The games mean everything to them. The Rays had better not take anything for granted against either the Rangers or the Angels.
And then the schedule gets hard again. The following two games against the NL West leading Dodgers in Los Angeles will be important for them as they try to nail down enough wins to earn postseason home field advantage. They will not be resting their regulars. Then back at the Trop, the Rays play four against the Red Sox, who at 76 and 66, are still harboring hopes to sneak into the postseason. Needless to say, they will be playing hard against their rivals in the AL East. Then come two games against the Yankees, who have owned the Rays all year. If the Rays haven't picked up the necessary 9 or 10 wins by then, they end the season in Toronto where there are more talented rookies (like Cavan Biggio, Vladimir Guerrero, and Bo Bichette) to make every game against them a hard-fought contest. None of this will be easy.
But even with all those caveats, the Rays will have to go into a terrible tailspin to fall out of contention for a playoff spot. With 18 to go, they need to finish 10-8 to make it, maybe even 9-9. They are currently 26 games over .500.
Saturday's game was another they would have lost earlier in the season when they could not find the formula to win close games. They scored the first two runs of the game in the fourth on an Austin Meadows single and a bases loaded walk. The Blue Jays took the lead with three runs in the sixth, but the Rays came back to tie it in the seventh on hits by by rookie Kean Wong (his first game and first hit) and castaway Daniel Robertson who had rejoined the team from Durham on September 1. Then in the eighth with the score tied at three, Travis d'Arnaud put them ahead by a run and Robertson again came through with a run-producing single.
If there is a concern regarding Saturday's win, it is with Charlie Morton, who pitched a fine first five innings before giving up three runs and the lead in the sixth. Overall he allowed five hits and two walks. Not exactly a shabby performance, but everyone worries about how much Morton has left in the tank. At 35, he already has 30 games started (14-6), 176 1/3 innings, and 219 strikeouts. The Rays will be counting on him over the last three weeks of the season--and hopefully into the postseason.
Colin Poche pitched the seventh, Nick Anderson the eighth (for the win), and Oliver Drake closed it out for his second save of the year, striking out the side. Altogether another good performance from a team that is finally showing how good it can be, but whose record all year has been marked by streaks of good and bad baseball. And so there has to be some concern that they will not collapse one last time when the stakes are so high.
Sunday's game features Tyler Glasnow's return to the mound after missing nearly five months on the IL. When he left, he was among the league's best pitchers with a 6-1 record and an ERA of 1.86. Hopes will be running high.
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