Game 1: Andy Aparicio turned in his best start of the season and he needed to as the Rays scratched out just enough offense to take a 2-1 victory in Oakland. AA pitched a complete-game 2-hitter on 100 pitches with only run against coming when Omar Rodriguez dropped a two-out fly ball allowing a man to score in the 7th. His final line was 9 2 1 0 2 10 to improve to 12-4, 3.59 and he now leads the AL in pitcher WAR, wins and strikeouts. The bats were held in check into the 5th by Sean Miller, a one-time Rays farmhand who was part of the Jhon Diaz/Blake Money/Marc Wagner deal a few years back (as was Nate Boesel, currently on the Rays' bench) and who has pitched well to the tune of a 1.82 ERA in 34 innings. He had to leave with a tired arm after 4 1/3, however, and they finally broke through in the 7th on RBI singles from Melvin Gutierrez and Jaiden Hardaway. Meanwhile Nate Clark went 0-4 and has seen his batting average plummet to .240 so despite being in a tie for the MLB lead in homers, he's only sitting on 1.9 WAR at the moment.
Game 2: The Rays bashed 7 homers and got another great start from Nate Schultz in a 9-0 pasting of Oakland tonight. All 9 runs scored on the 7 homers, which I'll just paste from the box score:
That was your scoring, and Nate Schultz went 6 4 0 0 1 8 to go to 12-1, 3.37 while Bob Sirna hurled 3 hitless innings with only one walk and five Ks to get his 3rd 3-inning save of the year.
Game 3: The Rays completed the sweep of Oakland, not exactly a shocker given that they're 42 1/2 games better than them but it beats the hell out of losing as they took a 6-1 win today. It was a two-man offense today with Rodolfo Rivas delivering a 2-run homer (#24) in the 1st inning and adding an RBI single in the 5th before Bo Angeac smashed a 3-run longball (#27) in the 7th to put the game away. Jon Soranno got the start and was fine, going 6.1 7 1 1 1 5 and is now 12-2, 3.12. It was time to get some work in for Jordan Diaz and he went 2/3 with a couple of whiffs to finish the 7th, Mike Wherry pitched the 8th and Kikuo Kawase saw his first action in 11 days with a 2K 1-2-3 9th.
Team record: 75-21. Next up: An off-day then the World Series champion Texas Rangers come to Publix Park for 3 games.