Rays 6, Tigers 1: Isaac Paredes homers twice in dominant win

The Rays offense lit up again, throughout the game, despite Brandon Lowe getting put on the shelf with a back injury.

Sadly, it’s worth noting the Rays offense might have benefitted early from an injury for Eduardo Rodriguez, who made it only one out before walking away with at trainer today.

Best wishes to E-Rod, but let’s get into the fun.

The Rays offense got things started in the first inning with three straight singles by Diaz, Franco, and Ramirez before Randy Arozarena took a four-pitch walk for the first run of the game. Francisco Mejia followed by stretching his arms and slapping a single into left field, scoring two more runs.

Isaac Paredes, facing the team that traded him, followed up the explosive offense with an absolute moonshot into the left field stands. This sucker went 411 feet, landing in the Louisiana Hot Sauce Ledge — Dewayne Staats: “That one had some hot sauce on it!” — and Paredes rightfully watched it fly before giving his first Rays homerun an epic bat flip.

The Paredes party continued later in the eighth inning with another homerun, this time with a more muted batflip but a bigger smile.

Meanwhile, Drew Rasmussen was getting calls this afternoon, particularly armside, leaving several Detroit Tigers fielders flummoxed and frustrated. Like Sugar Shane the night before, Rasmussen picked up 7 K’s on 0 BB, but only made it five innings instead of seven.

Matt Wisler was brought on in relief, and also like the previous night, Kevin Cash tried to squeeze two clean frames out of the first man out of the bullpen. In this go, Wisler allowed a solo homerun to Spencer Torkelson on a two-out slider that didn’t really slide. Mistakes happen, but this one was punished, bouncing off the party deck above the left field stands.

From there, Colin Poche and future-all-star JP Feyereisen kept the Tigers in line, with no base runners allowed. Rays win!

Notes

• One thing you need to make sure you appreciate: how loud the Paredes homerun was.

• Brett Phillips continued his strong run of play, with a well fought 7-pitch single, which he followed with a steal of second base that Detroit foolishly used a challenge on. He moved to third on a Diaz single, then scored on a Ji-Man Choi flyball that fell out of Robbie Grossman’s glove (Diaz was thrown out for oversliding the bag stretching for third). It wasn’t a terribly consequential series of events, but I enjoyed it.

• The defensive play of the game: