Ninety-two wins, and the homestand keeps rolling
Tampa Bay have not lost at home since this homestand began. Five games, five wins, and a sixth on the table Thursday afternoon when the Athletics come back out for the finale in St. Petersburg.
The Rays took Wednesday’s game 4-3, and they took it early. Four runs across the first two innings, then the rest of the night spent holding on. That is how this team has operated all year. They are 24-14 in one-run games and now sit 33 games above .500 at 92-59, a season high, with a four-and-a-half game cushion on the New York Yankees in the American League East.
A win Thursday would be their 16th sweep of the season, more than any other club in the majors. It would also move them to 6-0 on a nine-game homestand that opened by brushing the Houston Astros aside last weekend.
Try it for $0.99.
Two hitters going in opposite directions
Jonny DeLuca drove in the first run overnight and pushed his career-high RBI total to 44. Chandler Simpson collected two more hits and nudged his average to .3098, which leaves him a thousandth of a point behind Houston’s Yordan Alvarez (.3100) in the AL batting race. Yandy Diaz, the man who usually sets the table at the top of the order, has slid to .297.
“We’ve got two elite batting-average hitters,” manager Kevin Cash said. “Yandy is going through it right now. Chandler is on the other side picking up hits left and right.”
Rasmussen against a pitcher who used to be his teammate
Drew Rasmussen gets the finale. He is 14-5 with a 2.81 ERA, half of a rotation punch alongside Nick Martinez, and he has never lost to the Athletics: 4-0 with a 2.67 ERA across six appearances, five of them starts. He beat them in West Sacramento on August 12 with five innings of two-run ball. His two September starts have both run seven innings and allowed one run, and both ended without a decision.
Across from him stands Jeffrey Springs, who used to wear this uniform. Tampa Bay turned him from a reliever into a starter, watched him post a 2.46 ERA in 2022, then lost him to Tommy John surgery and traded him to the Athletics in a five-player deal in December 2024. His 2026 has been grim: 4-13, a 5.93 ERA, and 13 straight losing decisions between April 19 and August 30. He snapped that run with seven innings of two-hit shutout ball at Seattle on September 5. Against the Rays he is 0-2 with a 5.40 ERA.
The Athletics bullpen threw five and a third scoreless innings on Wednesday. “The bullpen was really the story,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “I thought we threw the ball great.” At 61-91, that is most of what September still offers them.
Discover the rest of our MLB news on MathODDS!
in your pocket.
Real-time notifications & alerts
Leave a Reply