The Tampa Bay Rays hit another milestone Friday night, and Yandy Diaz and Cedric Mullins made sure it came with plenty of noise.
Diaz and Mullins each launched homers and drove in two runs as the AL-leading Rays rolled past the San Diego Padres 9-4 for their 80th win of the season. Tampa Bay also put up five runs in the fourth inning, turning the game into a comfortable night after a brief push from San Diego.
Shane McClanahan picked up the win, working 5 2/3 innings and allowing three hits and four runs, three earned, with two walks and four strikeouts. The 29-year-old left-hander is now 8-1 at home and improved to 10-6 overall.
Chandler Simpson was a spark at the top and in the middle of the action, finishing with two hits, two stolen bases and two runs scored as the Rays won for the fourth time in five games. Tampa Bay became the first American League team to reach 80 victories, moving to 80-54.
San Diego got a homer from Jackson Merrill and stayed hot despite the loss, dropping to 8-2 in its last 10 games. Casey Mize took the defeat after giving up seven runs, two earned, on six hits in five innings.
Diaz got Tampa Bay started with an opposite-field shot to right in the third inning, his 20th homer of the year. It also pushed him to fifth in franchise history with 119 home runs and fourth in RBIs with 470.
The fourth inning was the big separator. Tampa Bay sent nine hitters to the plate and scored five times on just two hits, both two-out singles from Taylor Walls and Diaz, to build a 6-0 cushion.
San Diego trimmed the gap after Jonny DeLuca’s two-out single in the bottom of the fifth made it 7-2, then Merrill answered with a two-run homer in the sixth to pull the Padres within 7-4.
But Tampa Bay kept adding. Caminero singled in a run in the sixth, and Mullins capped the scoring with a solo homer in the seventh.
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