Austin Meadows homered, triped, and drove in four to support Shane McClanahan as the Tampa Bay Rays earned their fourth straight series victory and their 13th win in their last 14 games with a 7-2 decision over the Kansas City Royals Thursday afternoon at Tropicana Field.
Meadows got the scoring started in the bottom of the first, as he followed a hit by pitch of Brandon Lowe and a walk to Ji-Man Choi by tripling into the right-center field gap off Royals starter Brady Singer to bring in both runners.
Meadows then scored on a ground ball by Joey Wendle to Adalberto Mondesi, whose throw home was too late to get the Rays left fielder.
Meadows continued the scoring in the third, following up a walk to Lowe with a two-run blast to right field, his tenth home run of the year.
Wendle followed with a double off the wall in left-center and made it 6-0 on a base hit by Taylor Walls that ended Singer’s afternoon.
The Rays’ final run came in the fourth, as Kevin Kiermaier and Brett Phillips led off against Jakob Junis with singles, and Randy Arozarena lifted a sacrifice fly that plated Kiermaier from third base.
McClanahan (2-0) allowed just three hits and did not walk a batter in his five innings of work, finishing with six strikeouts and throwing just 63 pitches.
Michael Wacha took over for McClanahan in the sixth, and allowed a base hit to Hanser Alberto and a two-run homer to Dunedin’s Ryan O’Hearn, his third homer of the season, for Kansas City’s only runs of the afternoon. The right-hander gave up just two additional hits in his three innings of relief. Collin McHugh finished off the game with a scoreless ninth.
The victory extends Tampa Bay’s lead in the American League East to a full game over the Boston Red Sox and with New York’s loss in the first game of their doubleheader against Toronto, the Yankees fall to 2 1/2 games off the pace.
The Rays will have Friday off before beginning a two-game series with the Philadelphia Phillies at Tropicana Field beginning Saturday afternoon.
Steve Carney is the founder and publisher of St. Pete Nine. One of the people most associated with baseball coverage in Tampa Bay, he spent 13 seasons covering the Rays for flagship radio station WDAE, first as producer of Rays Radio broadcasts, then as beat reporter beginning in 2011. He likes new analytics and aged bourbon, and is the owner of one of the ugliest knuckleballs ever witnessed by baseball scouts.
