The Tampa Bay Rays extended their home winning streak to 11 games with a 7-2 win over the Miami Marlins. Cedric Mullins sparked the offense with a homer and historic bunt hits, while Tampa Bay’s pitching staff continued its dominant run atop the AL rankings.
The Tampa Bay Rays returned home on Friday after a successful 4-2 road trip. The return to Tropicana Field began with a rivalry weekend vs the Miami Marlins for three games.
The Rays took care of business, taking down Miami 7-2 in the series opener. Tampa Bay has now only allowed 14 runs in their current 11-game home winning streak.
Here are today’s top takeaways from the contest.
Bottom of the Order Goes Off
The Rays continued to showcase their small-ball approach as Richie Palacios dropped in a bloop hit and Cedric Mullins executed a perfectly placed bunt to move multiple Tampa Bay runners into scoring position. The strategy paid off in the second inning, with Hunter Feduccia driving in a run on a sacrifice fly and Taylor Walls bringing Mullins home with a sacrifice bunt to extend the lead.
They repeated the same magic in the fourth inning as both Palacios and Mullins reached base in a similar fashion to lead off the frame. Taylor Walls brings them both in with a line drive past first past that went all the way to the outfield wall was good enough for a 2RBI double.
Cedric Mullins might be on the rebound from his slow start to the season. He picked up his third home run of the season in the bottom of the sixth inning. He had a great night to begin the series as he also became the first player this season in all of MLB to have multiple bunt hits in a single game.
Pitching Staff Continues to Prove Why They Are Top in American League
Kevin Cash chose to begin the game with an opener as left-handed pitcher Ian Symour got the start. In the first inning, the 27-year-old retired the side in order with only 8 pitches. He returned to the mound for a second inning of work, and after retiring the first two batters, he let one get away from him as Connor Norby sent a solo shot 412 feet to left center field. He finished the day after two innings of work.
Jesse Scholtens followed him, looking for a rebound outing after allowing two home runs in his last time out vs. the Boston Red Sox.
He was rolling through the Marlins order until the top of the sixth inning when he let one leave the yard. The solo shot by Jacob Marsee. But that was the only blunder in his outing and arguably turned into his best appearance of the season. The Rays entered this weekend with a team pitching 3.00 ERA, good enough for the best mark in the American League and only behind the 2.94 Atlanta Braves for all of baseball. Allowing only two solo home runs and limiting the traffic on base is a great recipe to continue to move up in the rankings inside the American League East, especially when the Rays offense continues to shine.
Díaz Climbs the Rays All-Time Leaderboard
Yandy Díaz picked up 6th home run of the season right after Jonathan Aranda got on base via a walk to give the Rays an early 2-0 lead. Diaz entered Friday’s game 10th in the American League with a .297 batting average. The homerun was his 105th as a Rays player, surpassing Carl Crawford for 7th all-time.
The two teams will be back in action on Saturday for the second game of the Citrus series at Tropicana Field. Nick Martinez (4-1, 1.70 ERA) will take the mound tomorrow for the Rays as the Marlins will go with Sandy Alcantara (3-2, 3.90 ERA). First pitch is scheduled for 4:10pm EDT.