Sunday, 4 a.m.
This time, a ground ball to second gave the Tampa Bay Rays nothing.
This time, it was just an out.
Lately, ground balls have been friendly to the Rays, who scored two runs on a routine grounder to beat the Rangers early in the week, but weren’t as lucky this time. In the bottom of the 10th inning, Marlins’ second baseman Xavier Edwards made nice plays on back-to-back ground balls to preserve an 11-10 victory over the Rays.
It snapped a five-game losing steak for the Marlins and a four-game winning streak for the Rays.
It was a wild game, one in which the Rays blew a 4-0 lead and came back from a 10-6 deficit.
In the end, it was Edwards’ two plays — one that took away a base hit from Jake Mangum and the other to throw Cam Misner out at the plate — that made the margin hold up for the Marlins.
There was much waste by the Rays in this one. Outfielder Christopher Morel had two homers and a double and drove in four runs. Taylor Walls, Brandon Lowe and Danny Jansen all had homers for the Rays. The bottom of Tampa Bay’s batting order - Morel, Jansen and Walls — had seven of the Rays’ hits and nine of its RBI.
The pitching wasn’t as crisp as you’d expect, though. Taj Bradley gave up seven earned runs in four innings. Reliever Mason Montgomery gave up three more.
The Rays and Marlins play again today at 12:10 p.m. at Steinbrenner Field. Drew Rasmussen will start for the Rays against Anthony Veneziano.