The Yankees started their series against the Twins on a good note, dominating from nearly start to finish and only trailing after the first inning in a 5-1 win. Thanks to a rainout in Baltimore, this meant that they temporarily moving into sole possession of first place in the AL East, but what went down with the rest of the league? Let’s check in across the junior circuit to see the rest of the relevant action from Tuesday:
Boston Red Sox (22-20) 5, Tampa Bay Rays (21-20) 4 — 12 innings
In a word, Rays manager Kevin Cash called this game “irritating.” His more unfiltered thoughts probably couldn’t be shared to the media, because the Rays blew this one in extras at several moments. First though, let’s figure out how we got there in the first place. The Rays took an early lead in the first when Josh Lowe launched a solo shot to right field, but Boston had an answer in the form of a two-run Dominic Smith double in the fourth and a Ceddanne Rafaela solo bomb into the Monster in the fifth. More on the latter in a minute.
The Rays countered immediately with two runs in the sixth, one via a Randy Arozarena homer and the other on an Isaac Paredes single. That spelled the end of the day for each team’s starters, Aaron Civale and Nick Pivetta for the Rays and Sox respectively, and the bullpens entered to lock things down through the ninth. The 10th inning was quiet on both fronts, but the drama kicked up in the 11th starting with the top half.
After a groundout moved the ghost runner Ben Rortvedt up to third, Arozarena hit a groundball that caught Rortvedt in-between and he made out on a rundown. However, the Rays still took the lead two batters later when Rafaela fumbled a throw to first that allowed the runners to advance. In the bottom of the 11th the Red Sox moved their ghost runner over on a sac bunt, and after a walk put runners on the corners Manuel Rodríguez induced a grounder right back to himself but froze up looking between the double-play throw to an uncovered second base or cutting the lead runner at home plate, ultimately taking neither and just getting the out at first.
Thanks to that, the Sox tied the game and forced a 12th inning, where the Rays couldn’t muster up another hit to bring home anyone. That put the pressure on Rodríguez to pitch a clean inning, but he served up a single to Romy Gonzalez to end it instead:
Cleveland Guardians (27-16) 7, Texas Rangers (22-22) 4
Jack Leiter’s introduction to MLB has not been kind so far. After getting demolished for seven runs back in April in a spot start, the Rangers sent him back down for a couple of weeks before returning him to the rotation just in time to get beat for six runs (though only four were earned) over four innings last week in Oakland. He stuck around for another turn through the rotation, and had his worst outing yet.
A wonky first inning where Leiter hit a batter and threw a wild pitch miraculously didn’t result in any runs scoring, but the Guardians got to him in a hurry in the second. Leiter hit the leadoff man, walked the second batter he faced, and then Bo Naylor doubled both of them home to start the scoring. Leiter managed to get one out in the inning on a strikeout before issuing another walk, and then Andrés Giménez singled Naylor in. Leiter got his second out and inched closer to escaping by inducing a fly ball out of the dangerous José Ramírez, but Josh Naylor tagged him with a three-run homer to end his outing.
The Rangers made it close by chipping away one run at a time, including three solo shots from Adolis Garcia, Corey Seager, and Nathaniel Lowe, but with no-one aboard when they went yard there wasn’t much else the Rangers could muster against Ben Lively or the Cleveland ‘pen.
Houston Astros (17-25) 2, Oakland Athletics (19-25) 1 — 10 innings
Houston had to fight tooth and nail for this win, mainly because it quickly became an unplanned bullpen game. Ronel Blanco got the start for them and pitched well for three innings, but in the warmup period for the fourth he was examined by the umpire crew for substances on his glove and was promptly ejected.
He left the game with a lead at least, as Alex Bregman continued to heat up with a solo shot in the second inning, but the Astros suddenly had to maneuver around six-plus innings of work from their relievers, and it was going to be a tough task for them to be perfect. They were close, holding the lead until the eighth inning, but Ryan Pressly was the link in the chain that snapped, serving up a leadoff double to Abraham Toro before Brent Rooker singled him home.
Both sides went down in order from there, bringing us to another extra inning affair. The A’s had a solid shot to score first in the 10th, working a leadoff walk and moving both runners into scoring position on a fly out, but Esteury Ruiz and Rooker couldn’t make good contact and stranded the pair. That set up the Astros for an easy opportunity to walk it off, and Victor Caratini did just that two batters into the frame:
Other Games
Kansas City Royals (26-18) 4, Seattle Mariners (23-20) 2: Seattle was winning a pitchers’ duel between Logan Gilbert and Michael Wacha for six innings, but Gilbert stayed out for the seventh inning and ran into a jam he couldn’t escape from. Two walks set up a Nelson Velázquez three-run blast to take the lead for good, even though Mitch Haniger gave Seattle hope in the ninth with a solo shot to close the gap.
