Game 1: The Tampa Bay Rays are your 2033 AL East Champions, clinching their 12th straight division title with a 5-2 win over Toronto, which was also their 18th straight victory (and 26th out of 27) as they chase their team (and AL) record of 25 set back in 2022. Tonight marked the first start of the year for Danny Medina, who's been excellent in long relief, and well, it was interesting. He struggled with his command and control, but pitched effectively enough to go 5 4 2 2 6 6 with the walks quite unlike him but still grabbed his 3rd win of the year. Bob Sirna did his usual thing where he loads the bases and strikes his way out of it and went two innings with 4 whiffs, Tim Siqueiros took care of the 8th and Jordan Diaz put a man on in the 9th but still got save #11. The offense scored 4 times in the first 2 innings and pretty much took the rest of the game off, with Nate Clark's 2-run double in the 2nd the big hit along with Luis Corpus's 12th HR of the year. Sadly one streak did end tonight as Vlad Guerrero did not come away with a hit. He did walk his first two times up but went 0-2 to see his hitting streak end at 25, just as Jaiden Hardaway's did earlier this year.
Game 2: The winning streak reached 19 as the Rays took care of Toronto 9-3. Nate Thompson turned in a solid start, going 6 5 3 2 1 9 to improve to 6-3, 4.57, Tim Siqueiros whiffed 3 in the 7th despite putting a pair on, and Jordan Diaz went the final 2 for save #12 as he pitched the 8th then the Rays expanded the lead from 6-3 to 9-3 so he stayed on. Offensively we saw another huge game from Jaiden Hardaway, on base 5 times in 6 trips, going 3-4 with 2 walks, 2 runs scored and an RBI. His OBP is now .486 which would be a top 40 MLB season in that category. Rodolfo Rivas drove in 3 with a 2-run single in the 4th and HR #34 in the 8th, Will Quintana had a 2-run homer (#4), and Omar Rodriguez was 2-4 with an RBI double as the beat goes on.
Game 3: The Rays made it 20 straight wins in the most emphatic of fashions, nearly scoring 20 as they blasted the Blue Jays 19-4. Again this will be one of those games where I let the box score do the talking, although I will note that the 5 homers they hit in that 11-run 4th inning are a team record, and according to Baseball Almanac, ties the MLB record set by several teams (although it's possible 5 has happened somewhere else in this save with another team, or even 6 for all I know). Anyway, here's the box, which is not for the squeamish or Blue Jay fans:
Team record: 105-24. Next up: The win streak will face its sternest test when we head to St. Louis for the weekend to face the NL's best team at 83-44 and we reunite with Jasson Dominguez. Leo Ortega will also pitch against his old team.