ST. PETERSBURG -- With the Rays leading the American League East and owning the AL’s best record, there’s been a lot of talk about what kind of impactful acquisitions their aggressive approach to the Trade Deadline may yield over the next nine days.
They’ll have a hard time making a better move than one they pulled off in February: signing a veteran free agent by the name of Nick Martinez.
Martinez continued his incredible run with the Rays by holding the Guardians scoreless for six innings in Tampa Bay’s 3-0 win over Cleveland on Saturday night at Tropicana Field. The 35-year-old right-hander earned his 10th win, and the Rays improved to 16-4 in his starts this year.
Martinez’s 2.45 ERA is the second-lowest mark among qualified pitchers in the AL, trailing only Yankees ace Cam Schlittler, and he joined Sonny Gray (12), Gavin Williams (10) and Schlittler (10) as the only AL arms with a double-digit win total.
Martinez stuck to the formula that’s made him such a huge part of Tampa Bay’s rotation all year, throwing strikes with a mix of his three fastballs and excellent changeup to make quick work of Cleveland’s lineup. He allowed only four hits, all singles, and didn’t walk a batter while striking out five.
He cruised through his team-leading 11th quality start with just 84 pitches, which is on brand for the pitcher who leads all qualifiers with an average of 14.05 pitches per inning this season. It was the seventh time this season Martinez has worked at least six innings while allowing one or zero runs.
Excluding openers, he owns the fourth-lowest ERA for any Rays pitcher in the first 20 starts of a season.
It was more of the same for the Rays, too, as they’ve won five of their last six games while outscoring their opponents by 27 runs (38-11). The only different element of Saturday’s victory was that the biggest offensive contributions came not from the suddenly red-hot bottom of the order, but from the “Big Three” at the top of the lineup.
With one out in the fifth inning, Yandy Díaz ripped a double to center field off Guardians starter Tanner Bibee. That brought up Jonathan Aranda, who knocked a single to left. Then came Junior Caminero, who hammered a 110.8 mph double off the right-field wall for an RBI double.
Cedric Mullins hit a fly ball to deep left field, and Steven Kwan’s short throw skittered across the outfield grass as Aranda trotted home easily.
Díaz reached another milestone in the first inning, recording his 1,000th hit as a member of the Rays, and it came in classic Díaz fashion: a leadoff single on the ground to right field. Díaz is only the fourth player in Rays history with 1,000 hits, joining Carl Crawford (1,480), Evan Longoria (1,471) and Ben Zobrist (1,016) atop the franchise’s all-time hits leaderboard.