Rangers: 2, Rays 5 - McKay Impresses in debut

McKay day is here! The Rays have had a very ugly June, and after an 18 inning game at Minnesota on Thursday that depleted their pitching, the Rays promote their #2 prospect, Brendan McKay to the big leagues and help put the Rays’ struggles behind them.

McKay has a 6-0 record and a 1.22 ERA in 66.2 IP across AA Montgomery and AAA Durham

McKay started the game off with a 1-2-3 inning, getting Sin Soo Choo to ground out, Delino DeSheilds to pop out and Elivs Andrus to ground out.

2nd inning was another scoreless one for McKay, even showing off a bit of athleticism

Rays would FINALLY get the 1st lead of the game when Yandy Diaz opened the 2nd inning up with a double. Joey Wendle worked a full count on Texas Rangers starter Andrian Sampson before scorching a hit down the 1st base side for a double of his own, and scoring Diaz to make it 1-0 Rays with nobody out.

Avisail Garcia came up after Wendle and was looking to bust out of a 0 for 17 streak. Garcia worked a 3-1 count from Sampson and then got a hanging slider.

That’s one way to do it.

3-0 Rays after 2 innings.

The scoreless innings would be a pattern for McKay. He induced a lot of weak contact using a combination of fastball, cutters, and curveballs, with only 1 changeup thrown through 4 innings.

His first strikeout would come in the 5th inning, after getting Joey Gallo 0-2 on a inside fastball and curveball, threw a fastball. To a fastball hitter.

Dominik Vega

Beautiful.

McKay’s second strikeout came at the very next batter, Logan Forsythe, and it was an absolute domination. Forsythe tipped off a beautiful curveball, McKay tried to get Forsythe to chase after a high fastball, but Logan held off and the count was 2-2. No worries.

Dominik Vega

Inside heater for his 2nd career strikeout.

5 Innings. 15 up. 15 down. 66 pitches. Zero hits. Cash had said the Rays would keep him in his regular workload of 5 or so innings and 75-85 pitches. Would Cash keep him going in the 6th?

Heck yeah he would.

McKay got Cabrera to fly out for the first out of the 6th inning. McKay’s 1st hit give up would be 66.5 mph soft liner off Danny Santana. A sac bunt would put a runner on 2nd with 2 outs and bringing Shin-Soo Choo (and the dreaded third time through the order) to the plate. Choo worked a 3-2 count and McKay almost got him to go around on a check swing, but ended up walking Choo to put two runners on with 2 outs, which would bring out Kyle Snyder for his first visit to talk about the upcoming hitter, Delino DeSheilds.

Nah, chill fam. McKay had this ON LOCK.

Brendan Mckay’s final line: 6.0 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 0 ER, 3 Ks on 81 pitches. Absolute stellar debut.

An amazing interview with McKay’s parents during his debut.

Colin Poche took over for McKay and although allowed a hit, struck out three batters for all three outs including big strikeouts of Nomar Mazara and Logan Forsythe.

Dom Vega

Besides the 3-run inning in the 2nd, the Rays stayed quiet. Until they could get to the bullpen.

Back to back jacks by Adames and d’Arnaud makes it 5-0 Rays.

Rangers would finally get on the board with a run in the 8th off an Oliver Drake wild pitch to allow Asdrubal Cabrera to score. Jose Alvarado came on the 9th, and besides allowing a run to score, closed out the game.

Final: Rangers 2, Rays 5. Big win for the Rays to stay on top of the Wild Card.

Rays will look to win the Series tomorrow with Blake Snell facing off against Jesse Chavez. Game time is at 1:10 PM