St. Petersburg, FL – Adolis Garcia and Evan Carter homered while Nate Eovaldi stymied the Rays as the Texas Rangers defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 7-1. With the win the Rangers sweep the Rays and advance to the American League Division Series where they will take on the Baltimore Orioles.
Nate Eovaldi worked 6.2-innings for the win holding the Rays to one run on six hits while striking out eight and walking none.
Zach Eflin takes the loss for the Rays who have now been swept the last two postseasons while scoring just two runs spanning 42 innings. It’s their seventh straight postseason loss, the longest current streak in MLB. The Rays are now 10-9 all-time when facing elimination.
The Rays offensive woes continued as they were held scoreless for the first six innings by Eovaldi which extended the teams postseason scoreless streak to 33 straight innings.
“We’re going to continue to work hard.” Rays Manager Kevin Cash said. “I don’t know if it’s a fluke or not. The guys that we had out there were able to be better than we did today. We’d like to continue playing but I can’t put my finger on one specific thing on why we’ve been eliminated pretty quickly.”
Adolis Garcia led off the fourth inning with a solo homer. Zach Eflin retired the next two hitters before allowing a single to Leody Tavares and a RBI triple to Josh Jung. Evan Carter put an exclamation point on the inning delivering a 2-run homer to put the Rangers on top 4-0.
Corey Seager reached on an Curtis Mead error to open the fifth, moved to third on a Robbie Grossman single, and scored on a chopper back to the mound to extend the Rangers lead to 5-0.
Colin Poche took over for Eflin in the sixth inning. Eflin worked five innings allowing five runs (four earned) on eight hits while striking out three and walking two.
The Rangers added a pair of runs against him keyed by RBI doubles by Marcus Semien and Corey Seager.
Shawn Armstrong took over and worked a scoreless seventh inning.
Tampa Bay finally ended their 33-inning scoreless streak in the seventh inning. Josh Lowe singled and moved to second on an Isaac Paredes infield single. Lowe scored the Rays first run on a RBI single off the bat of Curtis Mead.
After the Mead RBI single, Nathan Eovaldi was lifted for Josh Sborz. He retired pinch-hitter Junior Caminero on a fly out to left to keep the 7-1 Rangers lead.
Zack Littell worked a scoreless eighth and ninth inning. Jose Leclerc worked a scoreless ninth to seal the win.