Sunday, September 8. Game 145: Streaking Rays head west for eight games

Rays 8, Blue Jays 3

Record 86-59.  If the Rays go 9-8 in the 17 games they have left, they will have 95 wins for the year--and a likely postseason spot.

Attendance:  14,071.  Tropicana Field

So far in September, the Rays are 7-1.  If you count the last three games in August, their record is 10-1, a late season charge that has put them a game ahead of the Oakland Athletics in the wild card race.  This has turned into the team they thought they were--then began to doubt during June and July..  But baseball is the long, slow sport of the summer, the one that takes six months to sort out.  They are now 27 games over .500, and with 17 games left to play, the Rays are in an excellent position to make their first postseason appearance since 2013.

Sunday afternoon's game against the Blue Jays was never in doubt, such is the confidence of this team at this point in the season.  Tyler Glasnow opened the game with an adrenaline-driven return to the mound after almost four full months on the IL:  he struck out the side with hundred-mile-an-hour fastballs and breaking balls in the 80s.  In the bottom of the first, Austin Meadows put them ahead with his 28th home run of the year.

Perhaps exhausted from his long-anticipated return to the mound and his all-out first inning, Glasnow stumbled in the second, walking a man and surrendering a long home run to Randal Grichuk.  But the Rays came back with two in the second, three in the fifth, and two in the seventh on a combination of 10 hits and two walks.  The bullpen continued its sharp work with good performances from Trevor Richards, who got the win and is now 5-12, and then Chaz Roe, Diego Castillo (two innings, three Ks), newcomer Cole Sulser, and finally from Anthony Banda, making his return to action after June 2018 Tommy John surgery.

There was an unspoken inevitability to the final outcome, the final brush-off as the Rays swept the Blue Jays for their ninth sweep of the season.  No one even seemed concerned when Kevin Kiermaier took himself out of the game in the fifth with a stiff neck.  No matter.  They'll just find someone else to replace him and he'll probably be ready to play on Tuesday in Arlington against the Rangers.  The Rays feel in command.

Milestone:  The Rays pitching staff struck out 10, giving them 1,438 on the season, breaking by one the previous high set in 2014, according to the Tampa Bay Times.