Rays: 1 , Athletics: 2 - (oh) No no-no

After a four game sweep (and five game win streak) of the Los Angeles Angels, the Rays go to Oakland to try and keep their west coast winning trip going.

Update to Mejia injury: - Rays don’t expect him to be out long, maybe a couple of days, but still activated Kevan Smith from Taxi Squad. To make room for Smith, they put LHP Ryan Yarborough on the COVID-19 IL due to symptoms from the Vaccine. Kevin Cash said he expects Mejia’s injury to only be a couple of days.

Sean Manaea must’ve come to this game with a vengeance for the 2019 Wild Card game, because he was absolutely masterful, and completely silenced the Rays’ bats for 7+ innings.

Manaea was perfect through 6 full innings, locating his pitches well, keeping the rays off balance, and had a little help from his defense.

But Manaea wasn’t the only one that had a great pitching performance. The Rays’ own Rich Hill, although not as dominating as Sean Manaea, was just as confusing for the Oakland A’s batters. Hill had a few in the first few innings, but made the pitches where it counted, striking out 4 Athletics’ over six innings, walking 2, and only giving up two hits.

Where Sean Manaea didn’t need too much help from his defense, Rich Hill & The Rays’ Defense flashed their skills, including two amazing plays by Yandy Diaz and Manuel Margot in the 6th to keep the score 0-0

To those that are worrying about the Ray’s offense slumping again, don’t fret. This was all Sean Manaea straight dealing vs the Rays’ bats going cold. After the Rays’ broke up the Perfect Game bid in the 7th with a Randy Arozarena walk, Brandon Lowe sent a Sean Manaea pitch to the warning track, but it wasn’t quite enough and Manaea kept the now no-hit bid going.

The first run of the game for either team came in the 7th inning when Andrew Kittridge came on in relief of Rich Hill. A double by Jed Lowrie and single by Seth Brown gave the Athletics a 1-0 lead.

Rays FINALLY got to Sean Manaea on the third time through the order *Eyes Emoji*, with their first hit coming on the top of the 8th inning off a Mike Brosseau leadoff double.

Mike Zunino got his share of seeing Manaea a third time, singling to score Brosseau and tie the game at 1.

Rays had a few singles off of new pitcher Yusmeiro Petit, but couldn’t capitalize and settled for 1 run.

Peter Fairbanks was activated and came back in a big way during this game, striking out the side in the 8th inning, after a lead off single, to keep the game tied at 1.

LHP Jeffrey Springs came on for the bottom of the 9th inning, and tried to get the Rays’ to extras with two quick outs of Matt Chapman and Jed Lowrie, but couldn’t figure out Seth Brown .

The Athletics had 7 hits off Rays’ pitchers on the night. Brown accounted for 3 of them. If anybody was going to walk this off against the Rays, it was going to be him.

Rays avoid being the 2nd team in one night to be no hit, but still lose 2-1, and are now 18-16. Rays look to bounce back today with a Tyler Glasnow start. Gametime is at 4:07 PM