The Tampa Bay Rays did just enough to win their 50th game of the season Monday night. (Photo Credit: Tampa Bay Rays)

The Tampa Bay Rays did just enough to win their 50th game of the season Monday night, hitting two homers and building a pair of two-run leads, while Jake Odorizzi had arguably his best start of the season. They held on to beat the Athletics, 3–2, allowing them to move within two games of first place in the AL East.


Source: FanGraphs

Odorizzi had a ten day break between starts — a respite that seemingly reinvigorated the right-hander. Odo walked two and struck out five over seven strong innings, allowing just one hit — a one-out solo homer off the bat of Khris Davis in the fourth inning that trimmed the Rays’ lead (at the time) to 2–1.

Odorizzi began his outing in similar fashion to that of his previous starts, by walking Matt Joyce, the first batter of the game. With a man on base, Odorizzi began to pitch out of the stretch … and continued to do so throughout his outing — regardless if there was a man on base or not — in an attempt to simplify his mechanics, and regain some of his command. That strategy looks like it  worked.

Was he dominant? Not really. He relinquished a fair amount of medium-to-hard contact that, luckily, was right at the outfielders. However, he was able to generate a fair amount of weak contact that allowed him to keep his pitch count in order, while also keeping himself out of the dangerous hitters’ counts that he’d been plagued by of late. And much like those who pitched before him — namely Jacob Faria, Chris Archer and Alex Cobb, none of which featured their best stuff in their most recent outings — he threw quality strikes throughout to keep Oakland’s bats at bay.

On the offensive side of things, Tampa Bay got on the board first in the second inning when Steven Souza Jr. belted belted a no doubter to left-center — his 19th homer of the season, and his second since the All-Star Break.

The Rays added to that lead in the third inning when Mallex Smith walked with one out, was wild pitched into second, moved to third on Corey Dickerson’s infield hit, then came home on Evan Longoria’s groundout.

Then after Davis’ aforementioned homer to right-center, Longoria answered in the top of the fifth with a solo homer to left, giving the Rays a 3–1 lead.

Longoria, collected two more hits in last night’s ball game, and has been mightily productive over the life of his current 10-game hitting streak, collecting six extra base hits (four doubles, two homers), scoring five runs, and driving in nine.

Tommy Hunter followed Odorizzi with a scoreless eighth, allowing just a two-out walk and extending his scoreless streak to 10 appearances (eight innings of work).

With a two-run cushion, Alex Colome, who blew two of his previous three saves against the Athletics, took the mound to close out the game. MLB Trade Rumors’ favorite trade target, Yonder Alonso, greeted the Rays’ closer rather rudely with a double. Davis followed by grounding out to third before Jed Lowrie successfully moved Alonso 90 feet closer to home when he bounced out to third. Though Colome uncorked his first wild pitch of the season, scoring Alonso to make it a one-run game, he earned his 27th save when he got Ryon Healy to bounce to short.

Rays win, 3-2.

The New What Next

The Rays will play the second of three against Oakland on Tuesday. Blake Snell (0-5, 4.85 ERA, 5.12 FIP) will get the start, opposite of right-hander Chris Smith (0-0, 4.50 ERA, 4.48 FIP).

Snell kept the Cubs off the board for five innings — despite walking four batters — giving him his first scoreless outing of the season. The bullpen could not secure a win for Snell, as the relievers gave up seven unanswered runs with Snell out of the game. While his outing was a step forward, the walks that Snell issued are concerning, and have raised his BB/9 up to an unsightly 5.9 on the season. Suffice it to say, if Snell can’t get it together over his next two starts, the Rays might be forced to rely upon the services of Brent Honeywell instead.

Smith will make his second big league start in Jharel Cotton’s place in the rotation. The 36 year-old allowed three runs on six hits over six innings in his first start on July 8, in Seattle. This season Smith has relied upon an 87 mph pitch-to-contact four-seam fastball, a whiffy 78 mph 12-6 curveball, and a 76 mph Changeup.

You can read about the series in our preview.

Rays 7/18/17 Starting Lineup

Dickerson DH
Souza Jr. RF
Longoria 3B
Morrison 1B
Ramos C
Miller 2B
Hechavarria SS
Peterson LF
Bourjos CF
LHP Snell

Noteworthiness

— Fun fact: INF Trevor Plouffe hadn’t played second base since 2012 … that is, until last night. Tim Beckham took exception to a fourth inning called third strike, and allegedly said something about it while he came out to play second base. As a consequence, Beckham was tossed. With Brad Miller at DH, Plouffe had to play second base.

Sure, Tim Beckham had a point, but…

— Trade rumors galore! The Rays are reportedly one of six teams in talks with the Phillies on Pat Neshak.

— Congratulations to Logan Morrison are in order. LoMo has been named the Rays Heart and Hustle Award winner.

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