Zack Littell Dominates Again, Streaking Rays Hold Off Marlins 4-3

TAMPA, Fla. — Early last week, Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash politely blew off a question about whether it mattered much for his struggling team to be back to .500. Those sort of milestones don’t really mean anything to a manager who's simply trying to win every day.

But on Friday afternoon, the Rays continued their torrid play and beat the Miami Marlins 4-3 under the blazing sun at Steinbrenner Field. They're 13-3 in their last 16 games — best in the majors — and are now 34-29 and five games over .500 for the first time since the end of the 2023 season.

It’s also a milestone that they won another interleague game, their 15th of the year, tied with the San Francisco Giants for the most in baseball. And, as of Friday afternoon, had the playoffs started today, they'd be in.

Pretty amazing for a team that scuffled along for nearly two months. The pitching and defense has been great, and they are finding a way to score enough runs most every day.

"Our pitching, it seems like every start we get, we're in the ballgame,'' Cash said. "More times than not, they're leading the ballgame with getting an opportunity to get a win, hitting basically that six-seven inning mark every outing. So they've been really good and the bullpen, for the most part, has been lock down really well.''

Zack Littell was the star of the day again. After throwing the Rays' first complete game in four years last Saturday — and needing 117 pitches to do it — he was brilliant through six innings on Friday. He allowed just one run — an Agustin Ramirez homer in the fourth while holding a 3-0 lead — and just six hits. He only needed 72 pitches to get those 18 outs.

His efficiency helped ease Cash's concerns of how long he could go on Friday under the hot sun. But six was plenty.

"We were certainly mindful of the workload from the Houston game, but it didn't really factor much into the decision to keep him going or not,'' he said. "It was more the state of the game.''

The Rays staked him the early lead with a run in the first inning when Junior Caminero doubled and scored on a Jonathan Aranda single. They added two more in the third with good situational hitting. Just like in Thursday night's win over Texas, they drove in two runs in the inning with the ball not leaving the infield.

Brandon Lowe reached on an error to open the inning and then Caminero ripped his second double of the day to left field. Aranda grounded to out second, scoring Lowe, and then Jake Mangum grounded out to short, bringing Caminero home.

The Rays added an insurance run in the seventh, which turned out to be huge. Aranda and Mangum both singled, and new catcher Matt Thaiss then got a two-out single to center, scoring Aranda to make it 4-1.

Manuel Rodriguez pitched a scoreless seventh, but Edwin Uceta — who's given up multiple runs in four different games since May 8 — got touched for two more in the eighth inning. He gave up a double and then a two-run homer to Otto Lopez, cutting the lead to 4-3. When he gave up another single to Ramirez, Cash went to Garrett Cleavinger, who got the final two outs.

Pete Fairbanks pitched a perfect ninth inning to get his 12th save of the season.

Littell wasn't surprised that he felt so good on Friday. He bounced back nicely from his complete game, and checked all the boxes every day between starts, which included an extra off day. He gave up just the one run and a few too many hits, he said, but he got the big outs when he needed to to end innings.

"I would have loved to go nine, but six was good. I felt pretty normal going out there,'' said Littell, who started the season 0-5 but is 6-5 now and the Rays have won each of his last eight starts. "I don't think I was super crisp and those last few innings with the heat, they smacked some hits through. I wasn't super sharp, but I was pretty happy with how it went.

"It's fun to watch (the Rays offense) right now. It's something different every night, it feels like. Today we pushed. two guys across with two ground balls, but that's getting guys in scoring position and getting them in. They deserve a lot of credit.''

Rays pitchers have allowed three earned runs or fewer in a franchise-record 14 straight games, and it's the longest single-season streak in the majors since the Houston Astros went 15 straight from Aug. 23 to Sept. 9 in 2022. The Rays lead the majors in ERA (1.80), WHIP (0.95) and opponents' batting average (.204) since the streak began on May 23.

Tampa Bay’s pitching staff also has held opponents to four runs or fewer in a team-record 17 straight games, tied with Cleveland (July 24–Aug. 9, 2020) for the second-longest streak in the majors since 2018. The only longer streak was the Los Angeles Dodgers, who went 22 games from April 21 to May 15 in 2024.

The Rays had six strikeouts and no walks, and it was 10th time this season the Rays did not walk a batter. They are 9-1 in those games.

The two teams meet again on Saturday at 4:10 p.m. ET. Taj Bradley is pitching for the Rays against Miami's Ryan Weathers.