ST. PETERSBURG -- The Rays kept stacking numbers on Thursday night, and all of them came up in Tampa Bay’s favor.
A six-run fourth inning powered a 10-1 win over the A’s, giving the Rays their sixth straight victory and trimming their magic number for the AL East title to six. Tampa Bay now leads the Yankees by five games, and it also owns the head-to-head tiebreaker, with 10 games left for both teams.
The game turned in that fourth inning, when the Rays finally broke through against A’s left-hander Jeffrey Springs. With one out and the bases loaded, Chandler Simpson lined a two-run single to center to open the scoring. Simpson finished 2-for-4, moving ahead of Houston’s Yordan Alvarez in the American League batting race, .311 to .310.
The inning kept rolling after Ryan Vilade was hit by a pitch to reload the bases. Richie Palacios followed with a drive past right fielder Lawrence Butler that brought in two runs, and when the throw home skipped away from catcher Jonah Heim, Vilade raced in as well. Springs did not watch the play as Vilade slid head-first across the empty plate, while Palacios advanced to third.
Taylor Walls finished off the burst with a perfectly placed bunt down the third-base line for an infield single, and Palacios came home on the play. Walls had been activated off the injured list before the game and was wearing No. 6.
That was more than enough for Drew Rasmussen, who continued his strong run with 15th win of the season. He worked five scoreless innings on 76 pitches, 51 of them strikes, and lowered his ERA to 2.72.
The Rays have now won 11 straight games started by Rasmussen, matching the franchise record for the longest streak of wins in a pitcher’s starts. The other 11-game run came in Matt Moore starts from Sept. 22, 2012, through May 19, 2013.
Tampa Bay also picked up its 16th sweep of the season, adding to its own franchise record. That total is the most by any team in a single season since the Dodgers had 16 in 2022, and the most by an American League club since the Astros finished with 17 in 2019.
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