The Rays dropped a thriller to the Twins this afternoon by a score of 5-3. It was their 2nd loss against the team from the twin city in 3 meetings so far. Joey Wendle started the offense in this contest with a solo homerun off of Jhoulys Chacin. Wendle isn’t known for his power, but he may have found his stroke as that was his 2nd long ball of the spring. The 2nd Rays’ run came off of a Ji-Man Choi RBI groundout that scored Michael Brosseau in the top of the 3rd. Brosseau and Lucius Fox led that inning off with back-to-back singles to start the rally. Randy Arozarena scored the Rays’ 3rd run of the game. He led off the 6th inning with a single and a stolen base that would eventually lead to a run scoring passed ball. Arozarena is not only showing his prowess with the bat, but also with his speed and baserunning skills.
Yonny Chirinos had a great bounce back performance after a rough outing in his last start. He would toss 3 scoreless innings allowing only 2 Minnesota hits including a ground rule double from the ex-Astro, Marwin Gonzalez. Chirinos would also strikeout 2 Twins in his outing. His stat line is even more impressive as it comes against most of the Twins’ everyday players who broke the MLB single-season homerun record last year. Brendan McKay threw his first inning of the spring in the 4th. He gave up no runs on no hits and collected one strikeout of the 2015 MVP, Josh Donaldson. Jose Alvarado got another inning of work today and gave up the first Minnesota run with 2 hits and one walk. He broke his streak of scoreless outings today, but he still showed some promise as he worked his way out of the inning with limited damage. Rays’ pitching gave up another Twins’ run in the 7th when Trevor Larnach blasted a solo homer off of Dylan Covey. It was Larnach’s 3rd bomb of the spring as the minor leaguer is making a solid case for the Minnesota roster. Shane McClanahan entered in the 8th inning and gave up just one hit striking out the rest of the side. He’s been a bright spot this spring as his electric fastball is currently blowing opposing hitters away. The Cape Coral product has a solid chance of getting a call-up to the big leagues at some point this season if he keeps this up. Pitching would blow the lead late though as the Twins, Matt Wallner hit a walk-off 3-run homerun in the bottom of the 9th. The losing pitcher in today’s game was Deck McGuire.
Tampa Bay Rays Reviews 