In the afternoon outing between the Rays and the Twins, the Rays were leaning on Drew Rasmussen and the Twins turned to Pablo Lopez.
In the top of the first, Trevor Larnach got a leadoff single, then with two outs, he stole second. Rasmussen got out of the jam by inducing a flyout to end the inning. Josh Lowe singled to start the home half, and was then eliminated by a force out off the bat of Brandon Lowe. A double play then ended the inning scoreless.
Ty France was hit by a pitch to start the second, but the next three batters went down in order. The Rays went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning.
Top of the third was 1-2-3 for the Twins. In the bottom of the inning, Danny Jansen drew a walk, but no runs scored.
The Twins once again went three-up, three-down in the fourth. The Rays, meanwhile, started the home half with a bang, as Brandon Lowe hit a solo homer. With one out, Jonathan Aranda singled, following with a Junior Caminero home run. Chandler Simpson singled, then stole second. With two outs, Kameron Misner walked. Simpson then stole his second bag of the inning, but the Rays would need to settle for just the three runs, which was certainly not a bad inning.
In the top of the fifth, Kody Clemens walked, but was soon eliminated by a double play. He would be the only Twins baserunner of the inning. In the home half, Josh Lowe singled to start things going, then advanced to second on a wild pitch. Yandy Diaz then reached on a fielder’s choice, with Lowe getting tagged out at home and Diaz landing at second. Jonathan Aranda then singled to score Diaz.
The Twins went 1-2-3 in the top of the sixth. In the home half the Twins turned to their bullpen, calling in Cole Sands, who got the Rays out in order.
Rasmussen was done after six, with a final line of 6.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K on 74 pitches. Talk about efficiency. He was replaced by Edwin Uceta, who gave up back-to-back singles to Carlos Correa and Brooks Lee. Oops. Despite the rough start to the inning, he bounced back and got the next three outs. Jorge Alcala was the next Twins reliever up. The Rays wen 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning.
The next Rays reliever up was Mason Montgomery and Christian Vazquez singled to start things off. Then a pinch-hitting Carson McCusker, singled. But with two on, Montgomery got the next three outs. With one out in the home half, Aranda walked, then Caminero singled. A force out by Simpson eliminated Caminero, but kept two runners on. A balk was called, allowing Aranda to score and Simpson to advance to second. The Rays were up 5-0 at the end of eight.
In the top of the ninth Connor Seabold came in. He gave up a one-out single to Ty France. France advanced to second on defensive indifference, but it ultimately didn’t matter as Seabold wrapped things up with no runs scored.
Final: Rays 5, Twins 0
