ST. PETERSBURG -- About three hours before the first pitch of Wednesday night’s game, manager Kevin Cash figured it was only a matter of time before Yandy Díaz worked his way out of a 3-for-24 funk at the plate. It was also a matter of timing, with Cash saying it could take just one swing to get him back on track.
That swing came right away. Díaz lashed the first pitch he saw from Rangers starter MacKenzie Gore over the right-field wall for a leadoff home run. Three batters later, Ryan Vilade hammered a two-run shot off the C-ring catwalk.
That was the extent of Tampa Bay’s offensive output on the night, but the early homers allowed the Rays’ pitchers to get in a groove. Opener Casey Legumina, lefty Ian Seymour and the rest of the bullpen took that lead and ran all the way to a 3-0 victory over the Rangers at Tropicana Field.
It was the Rays’ ninth shutout win of the season and their third in the past four games.
Legumina retired five of the six batters he faced, then Seymour breezed into the seventh inning by setting down 14 of the 17 he faced without allowing anyone to reach third base. Left-hander Garrett Cleavinger stranded a pair of runners in the seventh, then Kevin Kelly handled the eighth before Bryan Baker picked up his 29th save -- and his 18th in a row -- in the ninth.
The Rays didn’t record a hit after the first inning. Their only baserunners from that point on were Ben Williamson, who was hit in the foot by a pitch in the fifth, and Díaz, who walked with two outs in the eighth.
Fortunately for them, they had all the runs they needed.
After a power spree in which they homered in 20 of 25 games, the Rays had gone without a longball in five of their past six games, including the last three. That changed in a hurry, as Díaz blasted his 15th of the season and his 114th for Tampa Bay, tying Ben Zobrist for sixth-most in franchise history.
Jonathan Aranda then doubled off Gore, setting up Vilade’s ninth homer of the season. Hitting multiple home runs has been a virtual guarantee of victory for the Rays this season, as they improved to 25-5 this year when going deep at least twice in the same game.