Rays Power Their Way To Another Spring Win

BRADENTON (WDAE) -- Joey Wendle and Avisail Garcia each homered, while Ryne Stanek had a scoreless opening outing to help the Tampa Bay Rays defeat the Pittsburgh Pirates 10-4 Sunday at LECOM Park.

Wendle's home run led off the game against Mitch Keller and helped spur a four-run first inning, along with an RBI single by Garcia and a two-run double by Mike Zunino.

Garcia extended their lead in the fourth, after Willy Adames was hit by a pitch and Ji-Man Choi drew a walk, by blasting his first home run of the spring, making it a 7-0 game.

Rays pitching allowed just a single hit through the first thee innings, but Pablo Reyes got Pittsburgh on the board with a solo homer off Jalen Beeks.

Colin Moran got the Pirates back to within a handful with a sacrifice fly off Jake Faria in the seventh, but the Rays added three more runs in the top of the eighth on a two-run double by Dalton Kelly and a RBI groundout by Moises Gomez.

Pittsburgh pushed across two runs in the bottom of the ninth off Casey Sadler, but the right-hander was able to finish off the game with the game still well in hand.

On the pitching side, Oliver Drake and Colin Poche each had scoreless relkief outings, while Faria became the first Rays pitcher this spring to eclipse three innings of work in an outing, allowing just the one run.

Tampa Bay will have Monday off before a split-squad day Tuesday, traveling to Fort Myers in the afternoon to face off with the Minnesota Twins, and then hosting the University of South Florida that evening at Charlotte Sports Park.


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