Rays 9 Yankees 1: Bombs away! (in the completely peaceful baseball sense)

Guys, was that so hard?

All it takes is sharp defense, four home runs (two with runners on base!), and take-your-breath-away starting pitching, and you get a win. Even, dare I say, an easy win! (Or easy enough to give some rope to a few struggling relievers).

Let’s start by giving a shout out to the hitters, because we’ve certainly been down on them on many occasions. Curtis Mead, just called up to replace Yandy Diaz (who has been put on the restricted list for personal reasons), got three hits, including a run-scoring double for that all-important first run in the third inning.

Then, let’s acknowledge All Star Isaac Paredes, with a patented solo home run to left field:

We give a big cheer to Resurgent Randy, with a four-hit, three RBI day that included two home runs, this one with a man on base:

Then let’s give a big cheer to Alex Jackson. Partly because we don’t get to say that very often. But his three-run homer was the hit that broke open the game. Short porch, whatever, it left the park and put the Rays on the path to victory.

As great as all this was, my star of the game was Taj Bradley. He was IN COMMAND for seven innings. He gave up a hit to the first batter he faced and then he slammed the door. Got through seven innings with just under 100 pitches. He walked two but one was erased on a double play.

His spectacular day was not all about the strikeout, which is fine, because you need to throw a lot of pitches to get a lot of strikeouts. He struck out five, but the not so secret sauces was via the thirteen ground balls he induced. In other words, he faced 23 batters and 18 were retired via a strikeout or an easily played ground ball. You could see him smiling and high fiving teammates after the seventh inning, clearly a guy who knew he’d put in a good and successful day’s work.

Rays fans have gotten to see some pretty great pitchers come into their own, and I think we are seeing that with Bradley. He had a huge clunker of an outing against Baltimore on June 1, and since then he’s consistently gotten into the six inning at least and never given up more than 2 runs. It’s not clear to me that the Rays have a playoff push in them this year, but I will be tuning in to watch Bradley reach his ace potential.

The two Rays relievers who followed him (Armstrong and Kelly) were not nearly as impressive, but that’s why it’s nice to have a big lead.