Snell Wins 20th As Rays Take Another From Rangers

The list of Rays pitchers who have won 20 games in a season has another left-hander to the list.

Blake Snell joined David Price as the only pitchers in franchise history to reach the 20-win mark, combining with three relievers to throw a four-hit shutout as Tampa Bay blanked the Texas Rangers for the second straight day with a 4-0 victory at Globe Life Park Tuesday.

Both Snell and Rangers starter Yovani Gallardo reaped the benefits of early twin-killings.  Tampa Bay saw a potential rally killed off in the second when Willy Adames grounded into a double play, and an inning later, Tommy Pham saw another potential scoring opportunity end when he grounded into a 6-4-3 twin killing.  

Adames made up for grounding into a pair of outs in his next at-bat, as he followed a two-out walk to Kevin Kiermaier by blast a two-run homer on to the batters-eye beyond the center field fence for his tenth home run of the season.

Back-to-back doubles by Jesus Sucre and Joey Wendle later int he inning extended Tampa Bay's lead to 3-0.

Snell (20-5) allowed the leadoff batter to reach in each of his final two innings via a walk, but got Adrian Beltre to ground into a double play to end the fourth and following a strikeout of Ryan Rua for his 200th strikeout of the season, Hanser Alberto's deep fly ball was corralled by Kiermaier to keep Texas off the board.

The left-hander lowered his ERA to 1.97 with the five shutout innings.

Tampa Bay jumped out for one more run in the seventh as Joey Wendle started the inning by doubling off Matt Moore.  Matt Duffy followed with a single to center to put runners on the corners, and Ji-Man Choi's fielder's choice allowed Wendle to make it 4-0.

Chaz Roe escaped the sixth by getting Elvis Andrus to line into a doubl;e play, while Jalen Beeks allowed just one hit in two innings of relief and Ryne Stanek worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning to give Tampa Bay its fourth straight win and get to 18 games over .500.

Wednesday's Matchup

Tampa Bay Rays (84-66) at Texas Rangers (64-87).  2:05 p.m. first pitch, with coverage on WDAE beginning at 1:00 with The Inside Pitch presented by Crown Eurocars.

Rays starter - RHP Diego Castillo (3-2, 3.24 ERA)

Rangers starter - LHP Yohander Mendez (2-1, 3.86 ERA)


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