This time, it was the Rays who flogged the Cincinnati Reds.
After taking two losses in a row at the hands of the Reds, the Rays charged back with a 6-1 victory over Cincinnati Wednesday afternoon at Tropicana Field.
Led by the superb pitching of Nick Martinez and the bat of Yandy Diaz, again, the Rays cruised to their 13th win of the season.
Martinez went eight innings and allowed just five hits and one earned run. He struck out six. Martinez is 1-1, but the Rays have won four of his five starts.
It was welcome relief for the Rays. In their 13 wins this year, they've givein up 45 runs. In their 11 losses, they've given up 83,
Diaz had three hits, bringing his average bck up to .340. Ryan Vilade had two hits. Junior Caminero hit his sixth home run of the season.
The Rays scored three runs in third second inning and another in the third.
The Rays are off today, but play Minnesota on Friday at 7:10 p.m.
So who had J.J. Moser for the winning goal in your office pool?
Moser, a defenseman who doesn't normally score a lot, breathed life into his Lightning team in a 3-2 overtime win over Montreal at Benchmark International.
It was Moser's first playoff goal -- on his second shot of the night -- that provided the win. Moser has played five seasons and has just 26 goals.
Hagel shows his passion./TIM WIRT
On this night, Moser was a sharpshooter. It was the Lightning's second playoff win at home in their last 12 games.
The Lightning was behind 2-1 in the third period before Nikita Kucherov tied the game at the 12:33 mark.
Brandon Hagel scored his third goal of the playoffs to start the scoring.
Kucherov forced overtime./TIM WIRT
Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 25 of 27 shots for the Lightning.
Game three of the series is Friday night at 7 p.m. at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
Not to suggest that the offense of the Cincinnati Reds is fairly impressive, but did someone just refer to them as The Medium-Sized Red Machine?
For the second straight night, the Reds poured it on the Tampa Bay Rays. This time, it was 12-6. In two games, the Reds have 19 hits and 18 runs in two easy wins.
Elly de la Cruz drove in five runs and hit two homers to pace the Reds, who took a 9-0 lead in the game. The Rays managed just eight hits, giving them 14 in two nights.
The Reds took a 2-0 lead in the first on a two-run homer by de la Cruz, then added two more in the second on homers by Ke'Bryan Hayes and Dane Myers.
Matz had a rough night./KIM HUKARI
The Rays got a two-run homer from Jonathan Aranda in the sixth to get on the board. They scored four in the ninth on two bases-loaded walks and a two-run double by Johnny DeLuca.
Starter Steven Matz lasted just three innings and gave up four hits, four walks and four earned runs. The leaky bullpen gave up eight more runs.
The Rays and Reds play again today at 1:10 p.m. at Tropicana Field. Nick Martinez will start for the Rays against Brandon Williamson.
There for a while, things were going fairly well for the Tampa Bay Rays.
They were on a winning streak. They were in first place. The bullpen even seemed to be doing better after the early season forest fires.
Lately, things have grown dark once more.
The Rays lost their third game in four outings Monday, bowing 6-1 to the Cincinati Reds at Tropicana Field. The Rays managed just six hits son the night and didn't score after the first inning.
Tampa Bay had a bit of a threat in the first inning after falling behind 2-0 on a home run by Sal Stewart. Their first four batters reached on singles by Chandler Simpson and Junior Caminero and walks to Jonathan Aranda and Yandy Diaz (who collected the RBI.
After that, nothing. Jake Fraley and Cedric Mullins both struck out looking and Nick Fortes grounded out.
The Rays managed only four hits after that. They were 0-7 with runners in scoring position and left nine men on base.
Jesse Scholtens started for the Rays and gave up five earned runs in 5 2/3 inning.
Simpson had two hits for the Rays.
The Rays and Reds return to the Trop tonight at 6:40 p.m. Steven Matz will start for the Rays against Chase Burns.
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Friday, 4 a.m. They left 14 men on base. They stranded nine men in scoring position. They fell behind one of baseball’s worst teams three times. And still, the Tampa Bay Rays won again Thursday afternoon. They swept their second straight series — they’ve won nine of their last 11 — with a 5-3 comeback […]
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About Gary Shelton
• No one covers Tampa Bay like Gary Shelton.
• No one has seen as many moments, as many athletes, as many coaches as he has over the last quarter of a century.
• No one has won more awards, including two national Associated Press Sports Editors Best Columnist awards and eight top 10 finishes. He also just received his sixth Sportswriter of the Year award for Florida by the NSSA.
• No one has seen more big events, including 29 Super Bowls, 10 Olympics and 11 Final Fours. Gary still goes into the locker rooms to obtain his stories.
• No one has made you angrier, or laugh louder, or think harder about what he has written.
Now, he begins a website designed to keep him in touch with the readers who have grown up on his words.
