The Rays kept stacking wins Thursday in St. Petersburg, rolling past the Athletics 10-1 behind a six-run fourth inning and a crisp five-scoreless-frame start from Drew Rasmussen. Tampa Bay’s sixth straight victory pushed its American League East clinching number down to six.
With 10 games left for both Tampa Bay and the Yankees, the Rays own a five-game division lead and hold the head-to-head tiebreaker. The afternoon also delivered another marker in a season full of them: the club completed its 16th series sweep, extending its franchise single-season record.
Quick facts
- Final score: Rays 10, Athletics 1.
- Tampa Bay won its sixth consecutive game.
- The AL East magic number fell to six.
- Drew Rasmussen earned win No. 15 and lowered his ERA to 2.72.
- Chandler Simpson went 2-for-4 and moved ahead of Yordan Alvarez in the AL batting race, .311 to .310.
- The sweep was Tampa Bay’s 16th of the year.
The game broke open in the fourth against Oakland left-hander Jeffrey Springs. Chandler Simpson came up with the bases loaded and one out, lining a two-run single to center for the first Rays runs.
Ryan Vilade was then hit by a pitch, filling the bases again for Richie Palacios. The left-handed Palacios drove a double beyond right fielder Lawrence Butler, bringing home two more runs.
When the throw toward the plate got away from catcher Jonah Heim, Vilade raced home headfirst while Springs failed to follow the loose-ball play. Palacios took third, then scored when Taylor Walls dropped a bunt perfectly down the third-base line for an infield hit.
Walls had been activated from the injured list before the game and wears No. 6, a small detail that fit a day dominated by that number. The Rays scored six in the inning, recorded their sixth win in a row and saw their division-clinching number settle at six.
Rasmussen handled the rest with little fuss. He worked five shutout innings on 76 pitches, throwing 51 for strikes, and gave Tampa Bay its 11th consecutive victory in a game he started.
That run matches the longest such streak in club history. The Rays previously won 11 straight games started by Matt Moore, a stretch that ran from Sept. 22, 2012, through May 19, 2013.
Simpson’s two-hit afternoon also altered the batting-title board. His .311 average edged ahead of Houston’s Alvarez at .310, giving the Rays another late-September race to watch while the division remains within reach.
The sweep total carries its own weight. No major league club has posted more than 16 sweeps in a season since the Dodgers reached that figure in 2022, and no American League team has done it since the Astros recorded 17 in 2019.
