To start off the evening, we had a patented dome field advantage at One Trop Drive. There was a thunderstorm that passed directly over Tropicana Field for about the first hour of tonight’s contest, and had it been 2025 we might not have got the ballgame in.
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Tampa Bay placed seven right-handed hitters in tonight’s lineup against southpaw Trevor Rogers, and boy did it pay off.
Yandy Diaz had quite the night to say the least, finishing with four hits including two doubles, four runs, and four RBI on the night, and just missed a leadoff home run to start tonight’s ballgame.
Junior Caminero delivered the proverbial dagger with a three run homer to right field, right after a Gunnar Henderson miscue led to Baltimore only getting one out instead of two in the fifth inning. Caminero would also score two more times and walk twice tonight.
Are you sensing the pattern here? The righties swung it, and swung it well. The Flappy Boys went 9/20 with runners in scoring position, and had 15 runs by the sixth inning.
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The Vilade Brigade, the new manta started by DRaysBay’s own Ben Whitelaw for the Rays’ right-handed utility man, kept on trucking. The Oklahoma native had a three-hit, three RBI night that included a triple, and Taylor Walls helped himself to three runs scored and a pair of doubles.
It would behoove me to not talk about Shane McClanahan’s efforts, as he not only got the win, but collected his 500th career strikeout.
If you thought 16 runs on 18 hits was enough to satisfy Rays fans’ palates, about 250 of the announced 13,633 fans gathered in the left field corner in the 8th inning, took their shirts off, and swung them around their heads, even prompting Raymond to hop in and participate.
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The Rays conclude the night 16 games above .500, and with a 12-0 drubbing of the Braves from the Marlins, Tampa Bay is the best team in baseball.
If you don’t know by now, this team is for real. They love being around each other, they play for one another, and most importantly, they win for one another.
Believe it, Tampa Bay.
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