Jorge Mateo lined a walk-off single in the 11th inning as the Tampa Bay Rays claimed their major league-leading 14th series sweep Sunday, rallying to stun the visiting San Diego Padres 5-4 in St. Petersburg, Fla., after tying the game in the ninth against star reliever Mason Miller.
With the bags full and one out, Mateo hit a pitch by David Morgan (2-1) over left fielder Samad Taylor’s head for a single and the Rays’ fourth straight win. Jonny DeLuca tied the game 4-4 the at-bat before when his grounder was booted by shortstop Xander Bogaerts.
DeLuca knotted the game against Miller with two outs in the ninth and the Rays down 3-1. DeLuca hit a fly ball down the left-field line that Taylor originally caught, but his contact with the low wall in the corner at Tropicana Field forced the ball out of his glove and over for a two-run homer.
Junior Caminero was 2-for-4, including a tape-measure homer. Mateo walked, scored and stole three bases.
Rays starter Drew Rasmussen allowed two runs on four hits over six innings. He struck out six and walked two in the 97-pitch outing. The no-decision ended his streak of seven consecutive winning decisions.
Tyler Wells (3-2) was credited with the win after allowing a run in the top of the 11th.
Bogaerts drove in two runs with a single, walked and stole a base.
Padres starter Robbie Ray yielded one run on three hits over six innings, walking three and fanning four.
Bogaerts followed Ty France’s one-out walk and Jackson Merrill’s single in the fourth by knocking a single through a drawn-in Rays infield for a 2-0 lead.
Caminero emphatically put the Rays on the board with a leadoff rocket to left-center field off Ray in the bottom half. Statcast estimated the drive at 440 feet. It was his 37th homer of the season, tying him with the Houston Astros’ Yordan Alvarez for the American League lead, and it extended his hitting streak to 13 games.
Ray held his one-run lead in the fifth after Mateo walked and stole second and third with one out. The 2021 Cy Young Award winner fanned Taylor Walls on a fouled bunt and induced a groundout by Yandy Diaz.
The Padres went up 3-1 on a sacrifice fly by Sung-Mun Song. The run was unearned because of first baseman Jonathan Aranda’s fielding error on a pickoff. Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. and manager Craig Stammen were ejected after Tatis was ruled out to end the inning for leaving the running lane on a bunt.
–Field Level Media
