As May winds down, the Tampa Bay Rays find themselves as the hottest team in baseball.
Over .500 for the first time since the season’s opening week, the Rays will look for the series win against the visiting Minnesota Twins on Tuesday in the second matchup of a three-game series.
By topping the Twins 7-2 in the opener on Monday, the Rays claimed their sixth straight win — the best active streak in the majors — and improved to 6-1 on their nine-game homestand.
After outscoring the Toronto Blue Jays 19-2 in a weekend three-game sweep, the Rays got a strong start from winning pitcher Zack Littell and homers from Jonathan Aranda and Danny Jansen on Monday.
“There’s a lot of energy right now,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said. “I think winning helps show that energy.”
Stretching his hitting streak to nine games, Brandon Lowe produced two singles. Curtis Mead has hit in eight straight.
Tampa Bay’s Taj Bradley (4-3, 4.61 ERA) will make his 11th start of an inconsistent season on Tuesday.
Over four starts in May, the 24-year-old right-hander sports a 2-1 record but a wobbly 4.64 ERA, which has ballooned due to control issues that have hampered him all season.
He has walked 24 batters while striking out 48 in 56 2/3 innings. Batters have also knocked eight home runs and are swinging at a .242 clip vs. Bradley.
In three career starts against Minnesota, Bradley is 0-1 with a 5.09 ERA. Twins hitters have batted .250 against him while socking five homers in just 17 2/3 innings.
Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli hopes his group will have better swings against Bradley than they did against Littell, who made his major league debut with the Twins in 2018.
“Clearly not our best offensive effort, but we hit some balls hard but got almost nothing out of the line drives that we hit,” the skipper said. “It just didn’t work for us offensively today.”
On Tuesday, the Twins will turn to a pitcher who knows something about the Rays — former Tampa Bay prospect Joe Ryan.
Ryan (4-2, 2.68 ERA) was pitching well for the Rays’ organization in 2021, but in a rare, major deadline deal for the frugal Rays, he was shipped to the Twins in a transaction that returned slugger Nelson Cruz.
That year, Ryan competed in the Tokyo Olympics, where he won a silver medal with Team USA and manager Mike Scioscia.
The 28-year-old right-hander has made two career starts against the franchise that selected him in the seventh round of the 2018 draft, going 0-0 with a 2.53 ERA.
In the penultimate game of the Twins’ majors-best 13-game winning streak on May 16, Ryan fired six innings of two-hit ball and struck out nine as Minnesota won 3-0 against the host Milwaukee Brewers.
Most recently, Ryan tossed five-plus innings and allowed three runs on May 20 in the completion of a game suspended from the prior day. Minnesota ultimately emerged with a 6-5 win.
Center fielder Byron Buxton traveled with the Twins but didn’t play on Monday because he had not been cleared to be activated from the concussion injured list.
Lineup help may soon be on the way for the Rays.
At Triple-A Durham on Monday, outfielder Jake Mangum (strained left groin) and shortstop Ha-Seong Kim (right shoulder surgery), slotted in as the designated hitter, topped the batting order for the Bulls as both players participated in rehab assignments.
Mangum went 2-for-4 with a double, a walk and an RBI, and Kim finished 2-for-2.
–Field Level Media
