Sunday, 3 a.m.
Runs. Doubles and home runs. Singles and triples. Walks and stolen bases. A team touching home plate enough to wear it out.
How many times have you seen the Rays like this? They exploded late with three straight five-run innings (it's been 27 years since baseball witnessed that)? They turned a 6-4 deficit into a 19-6 victory, and they turned a baseball game into a relay sprint.
The Rays, unusually hot on offense lately, have now scored 56 runs in their last seven games (eight per game). They've collected 81 hits over the same seven games.
The Rays have never scored more than 19 runs in a game, although this is the third time they've scored that many.
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The victory made it possible for the Rays to close out the first half of the season with 50 victories.
“Tt was fun," manager Kevin Cash said. "The offense took to life, and we did it against a really good pitcher. It was nice. When you lose a 4-1 lead, it’s easy to cave. We didn't . We got some big hits. Offensively, we just kind of took off. I'm not sure what it was that clicked, but everybody just kept piecing it together. Getting big hit after big hit. It was nice."
Big hits. Like a two-run double by Wilson Ramos. Like a two-run homer by C.J. Cron. Like a two-run double by Jake Bauers. Like a two-run triple by Joey Wendle. Like a two-run homer by Bauers. And so on. The Rays had 20 hits in their explosion.
For the Rays, Jamie Schultz got his first major-league victory.
Chris Archer started for the Rays, striking out seven and allowing only one earned run,
My stuff was probably better than it has been all year," Archer said. "(The Twins) are just hot right now. We did our thing offensively, but they still put up six runs. They had some really good at-bats against me early on -- (Eduardo) Escobar had like a 10-pitch at-bat."
Perhaps the only depressing news for the Rays was that Ramos pulled his hamstring and will miss the all-star game.
The teams finish their series today at 2:10 p.m. Ryne Stanek is scheduled to start for the Rays against Fernando Romero.
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