Our Clients:

Field Level Media - Professional sports content solutions | FLM

Apr 15, 2024 2:41 am

Rays look to dominate another West Coast foe

Zach Eflin

After a successful weekend against one West Coast club, the Tampa Bay Rays will seek to repeat their series-winning ways against another starting Monday night in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Winners of two of three games against the San Francisco Giants, the Rays will welcome in the Los Angeles Angels on Jackie Robinson Day to open a four-game series.

Following a split of the first two matchups with the Giants, manager Kevin Cash’s crew brought out the lumber and knocked four home runs — two off former Rays ace Blake Snell — in a 9-4 victory on Sunday.

Rene Pinto and Amed Rosario each went deep against Snell, while Pinto crushed another to right field and Isaac Paredes homered in the club’s best power show of the season thus far.

Cash said the time was right to get to Snell, who was making just his second start with his new team.

“I’m glad we got Blake in start two. We know how talented he is,” said Cash. “He’s one of our game’s best. The command might not have been there, but the stuff certainly looked about the same.”

In his fourth start of the season, Zach Eflin (1-2, 6.35 ERA) will look to rebound from his second rough outing of the season in the Rays’ 7-1 loss to the Angels last Monday.

The right-hander allowed five runs and nine hits in five innings — one of the hits being a homer by Mike Trout.

Across four career starts against the Angels, Eflin is 2-1 with a 3.00 ERA and a .250 batting average against.

The Angels are coming off a 5-4 loss in Boston on Sunday, their fourth loss in five games.

Los Angeles played without young standout Nolan Schanuel in the defeat. The first baseman was out with a testicular contusion after fouling a ball off his right inner thigh in Saturday’s 7-2 loss to the Red Sox.

In addition to the injury, the 22-year-old Boca Raton, Fla., native is off to a terrible start in his second season.

After batting .275 in 29 games last season, Schanuel is batting just .108 (4-for-37 with a homer and five RBIs) through 12 games. He has also whiffed 13 times.

He made headlines last season by reaching base in all 29 games he played after being called up in August.

However, his on-base prowess came to an unusual end recently when his infield single against the Baltimore Orioles was changed retroactively to a dropped catch error on reliever Mike Baumann.

That stopped Schanuel’s on-base streak at 30 games, the third-longest stretch in major league history to start a career.

Alvin Davis, the 1984 Rookie of the Year for the Seattle Mariners, holds the record at 47 games, followed by Truck Hannah’s 38 in 1918.

The club’s Opening Day starter, Patrick Sandoval (1-2, 6.57), lost in his most recent start, a 6-4 setback at home to the Rays last Tuesday. He yielded four runs on six hits in five innings.

“It was a big struggle,” Angels manager Ron Washington said of Sandoval’s outing. “A lot of 3-2 counts, just couldn’t command the fastball. Didn’t have any consistency with the off-speed, but he stayed in there.”

In seven career appearances (six starts) against the Rays, the left-hander is 0-3 with a 3.69 ERA. This will be his fourth start of the season.

–Field Level Media

You may also like

mets
May 16, 2024 10:28 pm

Mets finally push past Phillies in 11th inning

J.D. Martinez hit a go-ahead RBI single in the 11th inning, then scored a key insurance run on a wild pitch as the New York Mets defeated the host Philadelphia…

pirates
May 16, 2024 10:23 pm

Pirates hold off Cubs in series opener

Jared Jones recorded a quality start and the Pittsburgh Pirates held off a late rally to beat the host Chicago Cubs 5-4 on Thursday night in the opener of a…

Rockies
May 16, 2024 9:55 pm

Rockies riding 7-game winning streak into clash vs. Giants

Two teams that walked away as winners the last time they met hook up again when the Colorado Rockies visit the San Francisco Giants for a three-game series that kicks…

More Baseball News

mets
May 16, 2024 10:28 pm

Mets finally push past Phillies in 11th inning

J.D. Martinez hit a go-ahead RBI single in the 11th inning, then scored a key insurance run on a wild pitch as the New York Mets defeated the host Philadelphia…

pirates
May 16, 2024 10:23 pm

Pirates hold off Cubs in series opener

Rockies
May 16, 2024 9:55 pm

Rockies riding 7-game winning streak into clash vs. Giants

Skubal
May 16, 2024 9:44 pm

Tigers out to halt offensive funk in opener vs. D-backs

juan soto
May 16, 2024 9:29 pm

Juan Soto: Door ‘open’ for in-season negotiations with Yanks

Read all
fb-post
advertisment
title-icon

Upcoming events

See all odds