Rays blank Indians in wildcard stoush

Delmon Young hits a solo home run in the third inning against the Cleveland Indians. Source: Jared Wickerham / Getty Images

DELMON Young smacked a home run as the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Cleveland Indians 4-0 to advance in the Major League Baseball playoffs.

By capturing the one-game wildcard matchup, the Rays reached an American League divisional series against the top-seeded Boston Red Sox, who went 12-7 against Tampa Bay this season.

Oakland and Detroit meet in the other AL playoff series.

Young led off the third inning with a solo homer to the left-field stands to put the Rays on top and Desmond Jennings added a two-out, two-run double in the fourth to give Tampa Bay a 3-0 edge.

The Indians, hosting their first playoff game since 2007, left the bases loaded without pushing home a run in the fourth inning and stranded two base runners in the fifth.

Cleveland stranded two base runners again in the seventh, when relief pitcher Joel Peralta entered for the Rays with two outs in place of starter Alex Cobb and struck out Nick Swisher to end the threat.

"The adrenaline was going pretty fast early in the game," Cobb said. "My stuff wasn't the best but the guys made it work. When Delmon hit that home run, it got a lot better."

In the eighth, reliever Jake McGee entered for Tampa Bay with two outs and a runner on first and struck out Ryan Raburn to end the inning.

The Rays added an insurance run in the ninth inning when Yunel Escobar singled to right field to score Ben Zobrist from third base,

Rays reliever Fernando Rodney entered in the final inning and retired the last three Cleveland batters to complete the triumph.

Tampa Bay and the Texas Rangers each finished the regular season 91-71, forcing a tie-breaker game Monday for the last playoff spot that the Rays won 5-2 at Texas to earn the right to face the Indians.

js/dw

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Rays blank Indians in wildcard stoush

Dengan url

http://ikhlasngeblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/rays-blank-indians-in-wildcard-stoush.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Rays blank Indians in wildcard stoush

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Rays blank Indians in wildcard stoush

sebagai sumbernya