MILWAUKEE -- Catcher Nick Fortes hammered a two-out double to right-center field in the ninth inning, Jonny DeLuca raced around the bases to score, and the Rays pulled out a 3-2 win over the Brewers in Monday night’s series opener at American Family Field.
DeLuca was down in the count against right-hander Trevor Megill, 1-2, when he fouled off one pitch and took three more to earn his way on base. That brought up Fortes, who quietly had an excellent Spring Training at the plate and kept hitting throughout the Rays’ opening series in St. Louis.
Fortes swung at the first pitch he saw, a fastball up and away, and laced it to the warning track in right-center field. DeLuca hustled from first base and scored standing up, putting the Rays ahead for good in their second win of the season.
Right-hander Nick Martinez delivered a quality start in his Rays debut, quickly shaking any lingering concerns about his poor performance in Spring Training, or the minor hamstring issue that pushed him back two spots in the season-opening rotation.
Martinez breezed through five scoreless innings in which he allowed only three hits -- just one reached the outfield -- during two trips through a Brewers lineup that scored an MLB-high 29 runs during opening weekend. He finally ran into trouble in the sixth, giving up a leadoff double to Brice Turang and a two-run homer to William Contreras.
But Martinez did his job, handling the bulk of the innings and giving the Rays a chance to win. He struck out three, didn’t issue a walk and worked six innings on 88 pitches.
Tampa Bay’s lineup did just enough, too, although it didn’t look like the singles-hitting squad that racked up 41 hits in St. Louis over the weekend.
Yandy Díaz continued his hot start right away, ripping his 22nd career leadoff homer to left field off lefty starter Kyle Harrison. That blast was also Díaz’s 100th home run in a Rays uniform, breaking a tie with Hall of Famer Fred McGriff for the eighth-most in franchise history.
Harrison and Milwaukee’s bullpen silenced Tampa Bay’s lineup after that, but DeLuca delivered a loud response to lead off the seventh. DeLuca unleashed a ferocious swing on a 3-1 fastball from reliever Aaron Ashby and sent a game-tying solo shot flying onto the Miller Lite Landing deck beyond the left-field fence.
According to Statcast, it was the second-hardest-hit ball of DeLuca’s career (at 109 mph) and by far his longest homer in the Majors at 438 feet. That evened the score, and Griffin Jax and Garrett Cleavinger kept it tied. After Fortes’ big hit, Ian Seymour recorded the first two outs of the ninth and Kevin Kelly finished the job.