Rays 7, Blue Jays 6: A wild one

Andrew Kittredge got the ball for his fourth open of the season, and for the first five batters, he was ON, sending down all five on strikes:

But a base hit, a walk, and a three run home tun to Brandon Drury quickly put the Rays in a 3-0 hole. From there, it was up to lefty Ryan Yarbrough to keep it at that to so the offense could mount a comeback.

‘Yarbs,’ as he is to be known on players’ weekend, wasn’t quite able to keep the deficit to three, allowing a home run to Cavan Biggio in the third. A few defensive miscues in the fourth increased the Jays lead to 6.

The Rays bats, however, didn’t go down without a fight.

Avisail Garcia put the first two runs on the board with this 399 foot blast on a hanging slider from Toronto hurler Trent Thornton:

Willy Adames added another pair on a similar pitch:

A single by Travis d’Arnaud brought the tying run in Austin Meadows to the plate, and...

Armed with new life, Yarbrough bore down, pitching scoreless innings in the fifth and sixth. He’d get two outs in the seventh before allowing two baserunners and ceding to Chaz Roe, who quickly retired Lourdes Gurriel, Jr to end the threat.

Nick Anderson pitched an impressive scoreless eighth inning, striking out two of the batters he faced. Emilio Pagan was tasked with keeping the game tied in the top of the ninth. He got himself into a 2nd and third, one out jam, but prevailed, striking out Bo Bichette and Biggio:

In the home half, Meadows reached on an infield hit and was awarded second base thanks to an errant throw by Vladimir Guerrero, jr with only one out. Brosseau flied out, and Eric Sogard was intentionally walked, leaving the game in the hands of Garcia.

Garcia battled in a 9 pitch at bat, but ultimately struck out, sending the game into extra innings.

Diego Castillo pitched a clean 10th, and the Rays got things going quick when Kevin Kiermaier led off the inning with a hustle double:

The Rays eventually loaded the bases with none out, only to watch d’Arnaud and Tommy Pham strikeout to suck the wind out of the opportunity.

Well, almost all of it...

It looked like Jays pitcher Buddy Boshers was about to get out of the 10th unscathed when he had Meadows on two strikes as well, but catcher Danny Jansen couldn’t handle a breaking ball in the dirt, sending Kiermaier flying home for the winning run: