Friday, 4 a.m.
For the Tampa Bay Rays, it was a dominating week of pitching.
Thursday, they got their best performance of the streak.
Shane Baz was dazzling Thursday as the Rays completed a sweep of the Kansas City Royals in a 4-0 victory. Baz, now 8-3, went eight innings and allowed just three hits as the Rays completed back-to-back shutouts. Baz struck out nine batters.
Before Baz, Taj Bradley had gone 6 2/3 innings of shutout baseball, and Drew Rasmussen had gone five innings of shutout baseball.
Still, Baz had the best outing of the three. The Rays won for the eighth straight game he has started.
In three games, the Royals scored only one run and averaged four hits a game.
The Rays are now 46-35, a half-game behind the New York Yankees in the AL East.
The Rays got back-to-back homers from Brandon Lowe and Junior Caminero in the sixth inning.
They had taken a 2-0 lead in the fourth when Jonathan Aranda doubled, Jake Mangum tripled and Josh Lowe singled.
Lowe had three hits for the day.
Yandy Diaz had his 15-game hitting streak ended. Brandon Lowe stretched his hitting streak to 13. Aranda stretched his to 11.
Pete Fairbanks had his 15th save of the season.
The Rays travel to Baltimore tonight to face the Orioles at Camden Yards. Ryan Pepiot will start for the Rays against Tomoyuki Sugano.