Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Sole possession

For the first time since May 18th, the Tampa Bay Rays stand alone in first place in the American League East:

Charlie Morton delivered a sparkling seven inning outing. Morton has only gone that many innings three times this season, and they’ve been in his last three starts.

Two-run dingers by Brandon Lowe, Kevin Kiermaier and Ji-Man Choi propelled the Rays offense to the 6-2 victory.

There was also this:

Further reading: Kiermaier, Heredia lead outfielders in new Statcast metric

Rays links

• TWIRB: Tommy Pham, Marc Topkin and more!

• Josh Tolentino of The Athletic answers your questions
• Juan Toribio of MLB dot com asks Austin Meadows how it feels to be third among American League outfielders in all-star voting
• Toribio also talked to KK about his outstanding night. Plus, there’s a sweet pun in the title!
• Ryan Kolakowski of the Tampa Bay Times writes about Emilio Pagan facing his old team

Other Links

• One last day at the ballpark: In this moving tribute to his late father, longtime baseball writer J. Scott Butherus documents a moment he’ll never forget. Have your tissues ready
• Power rankings from MLB dot com, ESPN and The Athletic are in
• The Athletic ranks the top 10 infield defenses in baseball with the help of Sports Info Solutions. The Rays make the list
• D-Backs, Phillies set MLB record with 13 homers. Whoa.
• This:

The Rays look to win another series and extend their division lead with another win against Oakland tonight Ryne Stanek gets the open opposite A’s MIke Fiers.