A big bat and a great starter will win you a lot of baseball games. The Tampa Bay Rays got both on Thursday night. Tim Beckham came up big with another multi-home run game and Matt Andriese was stellar in 7 innings of scoreless work as Tampa Bay took the final game of the Citrus Series over the Miami Marlins, 5-1.
After a quick 1st inning for both pitchers the scoring opened up in the 2nd. Brad Miller walked to start the inning and then the toasty bat of Tim Beckham came through with 2 outs. His 5th homerun of the year gave the Rays a 2-0 lead after 2.
The Rays narrowly missed a triple play in the top half of the 3rd inning, but that double play helped Andriese get through the inning unscathed after allowing 2 hits to start the inning. Andriese got more run support in the 4th from the same guy. Beckham came through with his 2nd 2-run shot of the game to double the Rays lead.
Kevin Kiermaier added onto that lead in the 6th inning when he drove in Derek Norris with a 2-out RBI single. Andriese would exit after 7 innings of scoreless work. He allowed 5 hits and struck out 8. Danny Farquhar allowed 2 Marlins to reach in the 8th, but then got Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna to get out of the inning with the lead still at 5. Chih-Wei Hu came in to start the 9th, but would be relieved by Alex Colome after allowing a run. Colome did what he does and got the final out to close it out for the Rays.
The Rays will be back in action on Friday night against an AL East foe. Chris Archer will head to the mound for Tampa Bay to face the Toronto Blue Jays for the 2nd time this week. Francisco Liriano will oppose Archer with 1st pitch scheduled for 7:10 pm. As always, coverage will kickoff at 6 with the Inside Pitch hosted by Steve Carney on WDAE.