Yesterday afternoon, the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Cleveland Indians, taking the series victory.

Five Rays had multi hit days with Brandon Lowe having the best day of his major league career thus far, mashing a home run and adding two doubles. Tommy Pham remained hot with two hits, including a triple, with Joey Wendle, Willy Adames, and CJ Cron having the other multi hit days.

CJ Cron crushed his 26th home run of the season.

On the pitching side of things, Diego Castillo pitched a scoreless first inning. Ryan Yarbrough was excellent, covering the bulk of the game, as he held the Indians to a run over five innings. Adam Kolarek continued to be solid delivering two scoreless frames. Hunter Wood struggled in the 9th, but Jose Alvarado came in and nailed things shut to give the Rays a 6-4 victory.

Wild Card update

The Yankees have a 4.5 game lead over Oakland as those two teams hold the Wild Card spots. Oakland will hose the Yankees for three games starting this afternoon.

Meanwhile, the Mariners will play host to the Baltimore Orioles for three games.

The Mariners trail Oakland by 5.5 games, while the Rays are 8 games back.

Rays News

• Kevin Cash and Terry Francona continued their ongoing battle. Francona parked his scooter in Cash’s office prior to the game, so Cash had the scooter move to the field for batting practice. CJ Cron nailed it.
• Tonight, the Rays travel to Toronto for a three game set.
• With the Opener strategy, the Rays were going to shatter some records. They now own the MLB record for innings pitched from their bullpen.
• Marc Topkin looks at the Rays have to play for in September
• Is Joey Wendle a candidate for Rookie of the Year?
• How will the Rays catching situation look in 2019?