Presenting your American League East champions...the Tampa Bay Rays.
The Rays won their 96th game of the year, stopping the New York Yankees 6-1 in the second game of a doubleheader.
The Rays, picked to be a mediocre team when the season began, ended in first place for 110 days to capture their fifth division title.
Diaz drove in four runs late./KIM HUKARI
The heros?
-- Drew Rasmussen won his 16th game, throwing 6 2/3 inningss of one-hit baseball. He struck out 11.
-- Yandy Diaz entered the game in one of the worst slumps of his career. He walked to the plate with an 0-for-29 skid. But in the final three innings, he had two hits and drove in four runs as the Rays pulled away.
-- Taylor Walls, normally a light-hitting, strong-fielding shortstop, had three hits in the winning game.
The Rays had lost the first game of the doubleheader, 2-0. Yankees' pitcher Carlos Rodan held the Rays to just three hits in the game.
Nick Martinez pitched well for the Rays, but he gave up a two-run homer to Cody Bellinger in the fourth inning. Martinez fell to 16-5.
The Rays and Yankees play again at 7:05 tonight. Ian Seymour (9-7) will start for the Rays against Gerrit Cole (9-9).
For more than two hours, while lightning delayed the misery, Bucs' fans had a chance to reflect on what has gone wrong.
The answer? The Bucs just aren't good enough.
Tampa Bay squandered a 10-point lead against a dismal franchise and lost 23-19 to the Cleveland Browns Sunday. The Bucs are now 0-2 and in the NFC South basement.
So should the Bucs have thrown a fortune at Baker Mayfield? Not off what we've seen so far.
Should the Bucs have retained coach Todd Bowles? Not off what we've seen so far.
Should they have paid Vita Vea? Should they have drafted Rueben Bain? Should they have hired a different offensive coordinator? As of today, all questions are fair. At 0-2, all second-guessingis allowed.
"Nobody's coming to save us, you know," said Bowles. "The penalties and the missed tackles -- we have to correct ourselves and we have to do it in a hurry. We've dealt with adversity before. This is an adverse situation again. It's the first time at the beginning of the season, but we're 0-2 right now and we have to pull ourselves up by our boots."
The Bucs settled for four field goals in their loss.
Browns' quarterback DeShaun Watson, a lighting rod during his time in the league, hit 24 of 30 passes for 238 yards.
Josiah Trotter hd 13 tackles to lead the Bucs.
The Bucs are home on Sunday at 4:05 p.m. against Minnesota.
The Tampa Bay Rays said goodbye -- for how -- to Tropicana Field on Sunday.
Evidently, they'll miss it.
The Rays beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-1, with a strong star. The Rays scored four runs in the first -- getting three of their four hits in the inning -- and coasted.
It was the Rays' 95th win of the season, and their 55th win at Tropicana Field.
One more win, and the Rays are the AL East champion.
The Yankees fell to Arizona, giving the Rays a six game lead in the division.
In the frst inning, Yandy Diaz walked, Ryan Vilade was hit by a pitch and Junior Caminero singled to load the bases. Jonny DeLuca then doubled in two runs. Chandler Simpson then singled in two runs.
DeLuca had a two-run double./KIM HUKARI
Victor Mesa Jr. hit his 14th home run in the fourth.
Griffin Jax (8-10) got the win, going five innings and allowed just three hits. Five relievers gave up three hits and one run.
The Rays travel to New York to face the Yankees in four straight games. The first game is at 1:05 p.m. at Yankee Stadium. Nick Martinez (15-4) will start for the Rays against Carlos Rodan (6-3).
They didn't score enough. Heck, they didn't even hit enough.
But they win.
For the Tampa Bay Rays, that was enough.
The Rays edged the Boston Red Sox 2-1 on Richie Palacious' blook single in the bottom of the ninth inning Saturday at Tropicana Field. Palacios, a .234 hitter, slapped a 1-2 hit to right.
Palacious drove in Junior Caminero, who had singled in the ninth, Chandler Simpson also singled in the inning, giving the Rays three of their eight hits in the inning.b
Before Palacios' single, the Rays had been 0-for-17 with runners in scoring position over the two games against Boston.
Aranda hit his 22nd homer./KIM HUKARI
The Rays got a break late Saturday when the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees 5-3 in Arizona. The Yankees trail the Rays by five games.
Freddy Peralta started for the Rays and, once again, pitched well. He allowed four hits over 5.2 innings and one earned run, coming on a double by Roman Anthony.
The Rays used four four relievers -- Kevin Kelly, Cam Booser, Cole Susler and Bryan Baker -- to shut out the Red Sox over the last 3 1/3 inninga. Baker (4-2) got the win.
Liam Hicks and Chandler Simpson both had two hits for the Rays. Jonathan Aranda hit his 22nd home run.
The Rays and Red Sox close out their series today in the Rays' final home game. The game will start at 1:40 p.m. at Tropicana. Griffin Jax (7-10) will start for the Rays against Patrick Sandoval (1-6).
Sunday, 3 a.m. South Florida can take solace in the final score. It finished about as lopsided as the experts said, and the Bulls are now 3-0 on the season. On the other hand, if you want to fret a bit, you an got back to the 21-17 score the Bulls had over Deleware State […]
Saturday, 4 a.m. Are you ready to race? Are you ready to see if the Tampa Bay Rays can hold on or not? The Rays lost a bit of their advantage Friday night, losing a 4-2 game to the Boston Red Sox at Tropicana Field. The Rays’ lead over the Yankees is now down to […]
Friday, 4 a.m. For four months now, the standings have told you that the Tampa Bay Rays are the best team in the American League. The number-crunchers will tell you the same. The Rays made sure the accountants paid attention to their 10-1 victory over the Athletics Thursday. It was their 16th sweep of the […]
Thursday, 4 a.m. The Tampa Bay Rays got their work in early. Late, they sweated. The Rays scored twice in the first inning and twice in the second, jumping to a 4-0 lead. Sure, if you want to quibble, the Rays managed only three more hits the rest of the game. The Athletics whittled the […]
Wednesday, 4 a.m. Ditto. Turns out, Junior Caminero liked this game-winning-hero role so much, he chose to do it again four games later. Last Friday, Caminero launched his 40th home run in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game to pull out a 3-2 win over the Astros. Tuesday, he did it again. […]
Monday, 4 a.m. The game was there for the taking. All the Tampa Bay Bucs had to do was reach out and grab it. And Baker Mayfield dropped it. Again and again. Mayfield, the Bucs’ fabulously rich quarterback, fumbled three times in the Bucs’ 33-27 loss to Cincinnati in the season opener for both teams […]
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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.
