Rays Walk Off To At Least Clinch Top Wild Card, Aiming For First in East Only 1.5 Games Away
(Chris O'Meara/AP)
The Tampa Bay Rays will at the very least take the top Wild Card spot in the AL after their walk-off win against the Toronto Blue Jays tonight. They still aim to take the AL East with the Baltimore Orioles only leading 1.5 games with only 6 games left for the Rays. The Orioles also won tonight against the Cleveland Guardians 2-1.
In tonight’s game the Rays started out with a 4-run 1st inning. Yandy Diaz started it in the first at bat against Blue Jays starter Hyun Jin Ryu with a six pitch at-bat that Diaz ended with a solo homerun to left center field. Harold Ramirez and Junior Caminero both walked before Josh Lowe drove all three of them home with his own 3-run homerun. In the bottom of the 4th inning, Christian Bethancourt added an extra insurance run with his own solo shot to left field.
The Blue Jays did not wave the white flag though, as they put up their own 4-run inning in the 6th. Throwing errors by third baseman Curtis Mead and Bethancourt allowed both Kevin Kiermaier and Tyler Heineman to get on base. Just to add context, those plays were back to back while there were two outs. George Springer and the Blue Jays made sure to capitalize on the errors as he drove both Kiermaier and Heineman in with a double to center field. Bo Bichette would single, moving Springer to third before Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit another single to score Springer. Cavan Biggio joined in the fun with a double to score Bichette, cutting the Rays lead to 5-4.
The score would stay the same until the top of the 8th where Santiago Espinal hit a double before being pinch run for by Cam Eden. Springer would ground out, moving Eden to third base where a crucial wild pitch by Pete Fairbanks allowed Eden to score, allowing the Blue Jays to tie the score at 5. The Rays would have the last laugh in the bottom of the 9th where Yandy Diaz and the top of the lineup would start the inning on fire.
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Diaz would double followed by a Ramirez and Mead single, scoring Diaz to tie the game again. Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano would get two quick outs before Josh Lowe would come back to the plate. He felt that his 3-run shot in the first was not enough for him so he smacked an inside fastball the opposite way to left field just landing in fair territory to score Ramirez for the walk-off.
For their remaining six games of the season, the Rays have the final game of this series against the Blue Jays at home before they hit the road for a two game set against the Boston Red Sox and the final three game set against the Blue Jays again, but in Toronto. Tomorrow’s first pitch is scheduled for 1:10 PM ET. Yusei Kikuchi takes the mound for the Blue Jays spotting a 3.74 ERA, while Taj Bradley takes the mound for the Rays with a 5.36 ERA.
