Rays Clinch AL East Title Beating Yankees in Nightcap

Tampa Bay won 6-1 for their 96th win of the year and fifth division title in franchise history. It was an impressive feat, playing a unique brand of baseball that is hard for teams to compete against.

That was on full display in the victory, as the Rays had only two extra-base hits the entire night but still managed to generate six runs. Their small-ball style of play proved to be the difference, generating runs in different fashions.

The first run of the game came courtesy of Ryan Vilade, who grounded out to second base with runners on second and third to score Taylor Walls in the third inning. There wasn’t another run scored until the seventh inning, when small ball struck again.

Walls was in the middle of it. Noted for his ability to generate offense by bunting, he struck again. He laid down a safety squeeze, and the Yankees didn’t execute their defensive play properly, as no one covered first base.

Walls was safe easily, with Chandler Simpson coming home without a throw for the second run of the game. Two batters later, Yandy Diaz broke the game open with a single to the left-center gap.

Ben Williamson scored, and Walls was flying behind him, sliding headfirst to barely beat the tag by catcher Austin Wells.

That gave Tampa Bay a 4-0 lead, but George Lombard cut into that in the bottom of the seventh, delivering an RBI single.

Kevin Kelly gave up the hit to Lombard, but the run was charged to Drew Rasmussen, who took a no-hitter into the seventh inning. In one of the best starts of his career, he struck out 11 batters in a dominant performance.

It was an all-around great game for the Rays, with Diaz breaking out of his slump with a two-RBI single in the top of the ninth as the icing on the cake before the team celebrated their division title.