Evan Longoria helps Tampa Bay Rays annihilate Toronto Blue Jays 11-5 – MLB Update
Tampa Bay Rays continued their great winning streak as they humiliated the Toronto Blue Jays 11-5 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida on Saturday, September 22 in second game of their three match series.
Starting pitcher Matt Moore pitched two plus innings, allowing three hits and two runs while striking-out two batters. Relief pitcher Burke Badenhop grabbed his third win of the season after tossing up 1.1 scoreless innings.
Kyle Farnsworth, Wade Davis, Joel Peralta and Fernando Rodney combined to pitch four scoreless innings to help Rays secure a much needed victory.
After the Blue Jays took the early lead, Ben Francisco walked to put Rays on the board. Evan Longoria and Desmond Jennings hit back-to-back home-runs to give Tampa Bay complete control of the situation.
With momentum on their side, Rays’ offence continued to put pressure on Toronto’s pitching line-up, scoring runs at regular intervals. Joe Molina and B.J. Upton hit two of the Rays’ four home-runs in the fifth inning to deny Blue Jays any chance of coming
back into the contest.
"It seems like we've been having more fun," Longoria said. "That's probably the biggest thing. It's really all about the belief that you can score runs, and we didn't have that for a while. It seems like it's back now."
"I can only speak to the last two years," Toronto manager John Farrell said. "It's an outstanding pitching staff. We've been in some close games here late in games where they've hit a ball out of the ballpark or scored some runs late. They're a good team."
It was Rays’ fourth straight win and credit should be given to the Manager Joe Maddon for keeping his players focused even in the most testing times. Right now, the Rays are placed third on the American League East Division standings, six games behind the
leaders New York Yankees.
It seems their best chance of reaching the playoffs is to grab one of the Wild Card spots. It will be interesting to see if Maddon and company can continue their winning streak to surprise their American League rivals.
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