Michael Wacha threw two innings of one-hit baseball, and Austin Meadows hit his third home run of the spring, but the Tampa Bay Rays were doubled up by the Minnesota Twins 8-4 Sunday at Hammond Stadium.
Wacha allowed just a two-out single to Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers in the bottom of the second inning, throwing 15 of his 21 pitches for strikes.
Tampa Bay got on the board first against Twins reliever Cody Stashak in the second inning. Brandon Lowe started with a base hit, moving to third on a double by Ji-Man Choi and scoring on a base hit by Manuel Margot. Yoshi Tsutsugo‘s sacrifice fly scored Choi to make it 2-0.
Minnesota took the lead in the third against Collin McHugh, who allowed a one-out walk to Rob Refsnyder, a base hit to Luis Arraez, and a three-run homer to Josh Donaldson.
Francisco Mejia knotted the game back up in the fourth off Hansel Robles with a double that scored Choi, who drew a leadoff walk in the inning.
Meadows broke the tie with a blast to right that landed beyond the seats. his third homer of the spring.
But the Twins would take the lead for good in the sixth off reliever David Hess, who gave up a double to Gilberto Celestino, and RBI double to Kyle Garlick to tie the game, and after Tomas Telis singled, Keon Broxton hit a three-run blast to left to break the tie.
Garlick added an RBI single off Chris Mazza in the seventh to set the score.
Tampa Bay has Monday off before returning to Grapefruit League action Tuesday against the Boston Red Sox at Charlotte Sports Park.
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.
