ST. PETERSBURG – Rays shortstop Taylor Walls, a .196 career batter, was asked if he knew his hitting statistics with the bases loaded.
"No clue," Walls said.
How about a .387 career batting average with 40 RBIs in 31 at-bats, plus a 1.100 OPS?
And how about his performance Sunday at Tropicana Field, when the Rays defeated the Marlins, 6-3? Walls broke the game open with a two-out bases-loaded triple in the fourth inning.
"Go tell [Rays manager Kevin] Cash to put me in at cleanup," Walls said with a smile.
Walls is often lauded for his slick fielding, but his offense is suddenly worthy of further inspection.
"Taylor’s own awareness [offensively] has been incredible [lately]," said Rays right-hander Drew Rasmussen (4-1), who earned the victory by allowing two runs over 5 1/3 innings. "We usually talk about how great the defense is, but with what his bat has been doing, it has been a really fun couple of weeks to watch."
In the fourth, the Rays trailed 2-1. Nick Fortes had just hit into a fielder’s choice with the Marlins nabbing a runner at the plate, leaving the bases loaded with two outs. Walls, the ninth-place batter, bided his time while Miami held a mound conference with right-handed Eury Pérez, who hoped for an escape.
Not this time.
Walls picked on Pérez’s first offering, a 97 mph four-seam fastball, and slammed it into the right-center-field gap, giving the Rays a 4-2 lead they wouldn’t lose.
"I’ve been trying to be aggressive early to a certain spot," Walls said. "I took one right down the middle in my first at-bat, and that kind of gave me the sights of where I needed to have it, especially early in the count. I just wanted to go up there being aggressive, and it was a pitch very identical [to the first at-bat]."
"For Wallsy to find a gap up there and clear the bases, it was massive," Cash said. "He wants to do well for every opportunity. He knows when he comes up in those situations, it’s huge to get that type of production, whether he’s hitting eighth or ninth. He has been having a lot of good at-bats here lately."
The Rays (30-15) earned their seventh straight series win and moved to 16-5 at home this season. They got solo home runs from Junior Caminero, who provided a 1-0 first-inning lead with a Statcast-projected 372-foot laser shot to left, and Yandy Díaz, who launched a Statcast-projected 426-foot blast to center. Caminero also drew a two-out bases-loaded walk off reliever Tyler Phillips in the sixth, making it 6-2.
The Marlins mounted an eighth-inning rally and had the tying runs on base. But left-handed reliever Ian Seymour got pinch-hitter Heriberto Hernández, who hit a Statcast-projected 439-foot pinch-hit homer in Saturday’s game, on a bases-loaded screaming liner to Walls at shortstop.
Seymour relished the opportunity to face Hernández, a former Minor League teammate in the Rays’ system.
"Kind of a full-circle moment," Seymour said. "You’re just trying to attack the hitter, get ahead in the count, expand if you get to two strikes.
"The goal is to win every series, and if you do that, you’re going to be in a great position to play meaningful baseball. It just seems like every day, we have each other’s backs. That gives you the freedom to go out there and be your best."
The Marlins applied extreme pressure with 11 hits and five stolen bases, but the Rays held them to 3-for-11 with runners in scoring position. Tampa Bay twice turned a double play when Miami had two runners on and one out.
"Those [double plays] were highlight-worthy," Cash said. "I feel like we're representing ourselves very, very well. We’re doing the little things right. The combination of the three guys kind of sitting in the middle [Caminero, Díaz, Jonathan Aranda], then all the traffic created around them allows us to score some runs. We’re a good team."
The Rays are getting big hits at the right times. Sunday, no hit was bigger than Walls’ triple.
"If anything, in those [bases-loaded] situations, you try to take a little bit of the pressure off of yourself," Walls said. "I feel like a lot of times, it’s easy to try to do too much or overdo things in those situations. Most of the time, I’m trying to do less. I’m just trying to focus on … being aggressive to a pitch in a certain location, and that’s really it."