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So if we’re looking back in a few days at a Rays’ series win, we can circle a three-pitch sequence in the third inning of the Rays’ 7-3 win yesterday. With the team down 1-0, two outs and nobody on, Diaz went with a good two-seam fastball on the outer edge and lined it into the right-center gap, stretching a double into a double. Two pitches later, Aranda, hitless in the series, broke his bat and that streak with a bloop single to center off a good sweeper. Foster Griffin hadn’t make a mistake, but the game was tied.
Then in the sixth inning, game still tied at one, Aranda worked a six-pitch walk from Daniel Espino. Chandler Simpson, batting third as a tactic to counter the Guardians’ use of an opener, walked on seven pitches. Espino got ahead of Caminero 0-2 and went after him with the high fastball that had been so effective in striking out Caminero in Games One and Three. This time, though, Caminero jumped on it, pulling it just over Jose Ramirez’s glove to score Aranda and give the Rays the lead. All three of the hitters atop the Rays lineup now had hits, and two had scored the team’s only runs.
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