After winning the first two games in South Florida, the Tampa Bay Rays could not finish off a three-game sweep of the Miami Marlins, as Rich Hill and Chris Archer combined to allow eight runs in six innings of work, dropping a 12-7 decision Saturday evening at loanDepot park.
Miami scored in seven of the eight innings they came to bat, including getting single runs in each of the four frames Hill worked. Miguel Rojas, who worked a ten-pitch walk to start the bottom of the first inning, scored on a Jesus Aguilar sacrifice fly in the first, but was countered by a Mike Zunino two-run homer off Marlins starter Elieser Hernandez in the top of the second.
Chad Wallach‘s RBI single in the bottom of the second tied the game, and Garrett Cooper‘s solo homer in the third game Miami the lead back. Wallach added a sacrifice fly in the fourth to make the deficit 4-2.
Hernandez would leave Saturday’s game in the third inning with what the Marlins are calling inflammation in his right bicep tendon. He would be replaced by Rule 5 pick and former Rays farmhand Paul Campbell. Campbell kept the Rays off the board until the fifth, when he allowed a leadoff single to Mike Brosseau. Yoshi Tsutsugo sacrificed him to second, and after a walk to Austin Meadows, Manuel Margot drove in Brosseau with a base hit to make it a 4-3 game. Don Mattingly would bring in Adam Cimber to face Wendle, who singled in Meadows to tie the game, and Yandy Diaz followed with a two-run double to give Tampa Bay the lead back.
But Archer (0-1) would allow a pair of runs in the bottom of the fifth, as Meadows had a pair of rough plays in the field. One would be ruled an RBI double for Aguilar, but then he dropped a fly ball by Cooper that allowed Aguilar to tie the game.
The Marlins would take the lead with three runs in the seventh on an RBI single by Cooper and a two-run base hit by Jon Berti, and after Willy Adames got the Rays back to within a pair thanks to an error by Aguilar, Miami scored thee more runs in the eighth off Collin McHugh on a solo shot by Adam Duvall, a triple by Starling Marte, and double by Cooper.
Up Next
The Rays have Easter Sunday off before starting the final series of this road trip, a three-game set in Boston against the Red Sox.
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.
