If there's one team in Major League Baseball this year that's separating itself from the rest of the pack, it's the Tampa Bay Rays, and it's not because of where they are in the standings.
The Rays are barely above .500, in third place in the A.L. east and well out of the playoff picture, but they had some fun doing it their way last night in their 3-2 win over the NY Yankees in St. Petersburg.
Relief pitcher Sergio Romo pitched the eighth inning for the Rays, then moved over to third base, and came on in the 9th as a pitcher again to pick up the save.
The Baseball Reference book lists 1971 as the last time a pitcher moved over to play third base in the same game, and if you knew that was Bill Wilson of the Philadelphia Phillies who did that without looking it up you are a true sports savant.
Rays manager Kevin Cash has been doing this sort of thing all season long, with mixed results, but it's kind of fun, even if the sparse crowds at the Trop indicate most folks in Tampa really don't care, and shows why the franchise really should move to Montreal instead.
In any event, the Rays are finding ways to beat the mighty Yankees this season, taking two out of three from New York in this series, the second time they've done that, and they swept the Yanks in another series before the all star break.
Kevin Kiermaier hit a two run homer off Yankees starter Luis Cessa in the sixth to build a 3-1 lead and hung on for the win. Romo relieved Jose Alvarado with two on and one out in the eighth, allowed a sac fly run by Giancarlo Stanton before striking out Gleyber Torres, then moved over to third base to start the ninth as Jonny Venters entered the game to pitch.
But the Yanks had two on and two out when Romo was called back from the hot corner, where he didn't have to make a play, and struck out Brett Gardner to end the game.
Now the pitcher who was supposed to start for the Rays last night was Nathan Eovaldi, but before the game he was traded to the Boston Red Sox, who had their game against Baltimore rained out last night, and more on that in a moment.
This could be a good pick up by the Red Sox, who lost out on the trade bidding for reliever Zach Britton, who went to the NY Yankees. The Sox could still use some help to fortify the bullpen, with Joe Kelly struggling of late and Tyler Thornburg far from the form he displayed when was an all star for the Milwaukee Brewers two seasons ago.
But with Eduardo Rodriguez out with an ankle injury, the Red Sox need another starter and since the rotation is already packed with lefties, Eovaldi brings a needed right handed presence, and a hard throwing one at that.
He routinely throws his fastball in the high 90's and flirted with no-hitters in three different starts for the Rays this year.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox will have to play a make-up game against the Orioles after the rain out in Baltimore last night and they are not happy about it, arguing, rather well I think, that the game last night should never have started in the first place. Radar tracking clearly showed thundershowers moving into the skies above Camden Yards and sure enough, after just two innings and a 5-0 Red Sox lead on home runs by Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez, the rains came, the tarp came out, and was never pulled back as the game was called hours later.
David Price threw just fourteen pitches and those home runs by Betts and Martinez happened but didn't as far as the official stats are concerned. The game will be replayed in full at a future date and those dingers don't count, so it was just a massive waste of time and energy for both teams to have ever gone on the field last night, but potentially far more costly for the Red Sox, because even if the Orioles didn't play play another game this season, no one in Maryland would notice. It looked like there were about 25 people at the house that Ripken built last night, and most of them were Red Sox fans.
The NY Mets have now won two in a row, beating the San Diego Padres 6-4, and it was an extra special win for Mets starter Corey Oswalt, who grew up in san Diego and went five innings, giving up just three hits against the team cheered for as a kid. Jose Bautista hit a two run homer for the Mets, tying him for 99th place on the all-time career list with Tino Martinez, and Anthony Swarzak got six outs for his second save of the season as the Mets took a series for the first time in two months.
The Minnesota Twins completed a sweep of the Blue Jays in Toronto last night with a 12-6 win, but that game was actually really close. The Twins and Jays were tied at six apiece and had to play extra innings, the lopsided final only made possible by a six-run eleventh inning for the Twins. The game winning run came in when Max Kepler got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and the Twins scored five more times after that to put the game away.
In the NY Penn League, the Vermont Lake Monsters took a 2-0 lead into the top of the fourth inning against the Williamsport Crosscutters at Centennial Field last night, but that lead was just a memory by the end of the inning, as Williamsport exploded for seven runs in the inning and went on to a 9-2 win.
In the NECBL the Vermont Mountaineers worked overtime against the Newport Gulls, and it paid off when they broke a scoreless tie in the top of the 13th inning, scoring four runs in a 4-0 win in Rhode Island.
And Vermont's Chase Achuff took a page out of Tampa Bay's book. He capped off that four run thirteenth inning with a two-run triple, but he also came on to pitch two innings of scoreless relief for the Mountaineers after starting the game at his natural third base position.
The Upper Valley Nighthawks were off last night. They take on the Keene Swamp Bats tonight.
