The Tampa Bay Rays were able to avoid being swept on Wednesday. Cincinnati’s offense struggled against former teammate Nick Martinez as he held the Reds to one run over his eight innings before the Rays bullpen closed the game out in the 9th for a 6-1 win.
After a quiet 1st inning the Rays went to work in the 2nd inning with plenty of help from Brandon Williamson. The Reds lefty walked the first two batters and then gave up an RBI single and a sacrifice fly. Williamson then followed up by hitting the next batter. Yandy Diaz capped off the inning with an RBI single that made it 3-0. An inning later Junior Caminero led off with a home run to extend Tampa Bay’s lead to four runs.
Cincinnati started to get a little something brewing against Nick Martinez in the top of the 5th inning. Nathaniel Lowe led off with a single and moved to third base when Spencer Steer doubled. Will Benson then drew a walk to load the bases with no outs. Before P.J. Higgins came to the plate the Rays pitching coach walked to the mound for a discussion. Higgins hit a sacrifice fly to right field to get his team on the board, but that was all they would get as a force out at the plate on a “contact” play resulted in the second out of the inning and then a line drive to right field ended it.
Tampa Bay would get that run back in the bottom of the inning off of Williamson after two singles were sandwiched around a walk and a fly out before the call to the bullpen came. Connor Phillips entered the game and threw one pitch to induce an inning-ending groundball double play as he stranded two runners. Two innings later the Rays tacked on another run after Phillips loaded the bases with no outs before a groundout brought in a run. Tony Santillan entered after that and got out the inning with no further damage. That was the last time either team had a runner on base as the Rays held on for a 6-1 win to avoid being swept.
Key Moment of the Game
The bottom of the 2nd inning when Tampa Bay scored three runs to take the lead and they never looked back.
Notes Worth Noting
Despite the loss, Cincinnati finished up their road trip with a 5-1 record and they remain in 1st place in the National League Central.
Tony Santillan’s ERA remains at 0.00. The right-handed reliever has pitched in 11 games and given up just three hits in 10.2 innings. He walked two batters in each of his first two outings. Since then he’s only walked two batters total.
Spencer Steer’s double extended his hitting streak to a team best five games.
Brandon Williamson’s struggles with throwing strikes continued in this one. He had as many walks as strikeouts on Wednesday afternoon but also hit a batter. Between walks and hit batters he now has 19 of them with just 15 strikeouts in 24.2 innings pitched this season.
Up Next for the Cincinnati Reds
Detroit Tigers vs Cincinnati Reds
Friday April 24th, 6:40pm ET
TBA vs Andrew Abbott (0-2, 5.84 ERA)
