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This date in Rays history: August 7th

On this date in Rays history, the team added a veteran backstop and a veteran reliever, had another walk off win, and also, a very big 3000th hit.

1999 - Wade Boggs became the 23rd member of the 3,000 hit club and the only one of which to have it be home run. Boggs cames into the game with 2,997 hits, needing only 3 to make history. In his first at-bat, he faced Cleveland starter, Charles Nagy. Boggs took an 0-1 pitch and grounded it to the 2nd baseman, Roberto Alomar who fielded it cleanly and threw to the first baseman, Jim Thome for the out. Boggs' 2nd at-bat came in the bottom of the 3rd. He was set to face Nagy again, this time with the bases loaded and no outs. Boggs took a 1-1 pitch and grounded it sharply through the right side. Dave Martinez, the runner on 3rd scored, Aaron Ledesma moved to 3rd and Terrel Lowery moved to 2nd. Boggs had his 2,998th hit, he would score on a Fred McGriff double. Now 2 hits away from history, Boggs came to bat in the bottom of the 4th, with 2 outs and Ledesma on 3rd. Boggs took a 1-1 pitch and again, grounded it sharply through the right side just past a diving Alomar for his 2,999th hit. Ledesma scored on the play to give Boggs his 2nd RBI of the nigh also. In the bottom of the 6th, Boggs came up against Chirs Haney, there was 1 out and a Terrel Lowery was on 1st. On a 2-2 pitch, Boggs sent a hanging breaking ball to the right field seats for his 3,000th hit and became the first player in baseball history to have his 3,000th hit be a homerun. Boggs would walk in his next at-bat and he would get 10 more hits before an injury would force him to retire. Boggs would be a hitting instructor for the 2000 season for the D-Rays and he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005.

2003 - Going up against the Kansas City Royals, the D-Rays could only muster 4 hits, no runs of off Darrel May and co. In the bottom of the 9th, Royals rookie fireballer, Mike MacDougal came on to close out the 2-0 game. He would face Toby Hall, Travis Lee, and Damian Rolls. Hall met MacDouglal's first pitch with a line drive single to left, Brandon Backe would come on to pitch run for Hall. Next up was Lee, he took a 2-2 pitch and grounded it to the 2nd baseman, Carlos Febles. Febles misplayed the grounder and it went for an error, and put runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs for Damian Rolls. Rolls sacrificed the runners over, so now there's 1 out and runners in scoring position for pinch-hitter, Al Martin. With a 1-2 count, Martin lined the ball to the Right-Center field gap for a 2-RBI triple to tie the game and have the winning run 90ft away with 1 out for short stop, Julio Lugo. Lugo had faced MacDougal once before and K'd on 3 pitches, this time he swung at the first pitch and lined it to right for the single and scored Martin for the walk-off victory.

2008 - The Rays purchased submarine reliever, Chad Bradford from the Baltimore Orioles. Bradford pitched in 41 regular season games, and 7 post season games for the Rays from 08'-09'. He had a record of 2-0, 2.45ERA in 29.1IP. Bradford was granted free agency at the end of the 2009 season ad he quietly retired and went to work on his coaching career.

2009 - The Rays acquired catcher, Gregg Zaun for a PTBNL (Rhyne Hughes). Zaun played in 34 games for the Rays in 2009. He had the most impact in the one on August 16th against the Blue Jays where he hit a clutch grand slam to give the Rays the lead and eventually the victory. Zaun had 27 hits in 94AB's, 4 homers, 14 RBI's, and had a line of .323/.489/.813. Zaun was granted free agency at the end of the season, he retired at the beginning of Sping Training in 2011

And that's what happened on August 7th in Rays history, thank you for reading.


This post was written by a member of the DRaysBay community and does not necessarily express the views or opinions of DRaysBay staff.