Rays stay on attack in win over Tigers

Marc Topkin, Tampa Bay Times on Jun 21, 2025

Published in Baseball

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TAMPA, Fla. — The names on the lineup card likely don’t jump out to many around the game except the Rays’ own fans.

But it’s getting harder and harder to ignore what they’re doing.

The Rays continued their month-long rampage through opposing pitching staffs, scoring a second straight victory, this time 8-3 over a Detroit Tigers team that came to Tampa with the best record in the majors.

Tampa Bay moved to a season-high nine games over .500 at 43-34, having won a majors-best 22 of 30 games since May 20.

In that span, the Rays have averaged more than six runs a game, most in MLB, while allowing just above three.

The Rays jumped to a 4-0 lead in the first inning, doing most of their work with two outs.

Between leadoff man Yandy Diaz’s flyout and Junior Caminero’s strikeout, Brandon Lowe swung at strike three but the ball eluded catcher Jake Rogers so Lowe reached.

Then the Rays kept up a trend of building multi-run innings.

Jonathan Aranda doubled and Christopher Morel walked to load the bases. Josh Lowe then worked a good at-bat off lefty Tigers opener Brant Hurter, going from 0-2 to a seven-pitch walk to force in a run. Jose Caballero was hit by a pitch to force in another. And Taylor Walls delivered a two-run double.

The Rays kept adding on.

In the second, Yandy Diaz led off with a double, extending his hitting streak to 12 games, and Brandon Lowe followed with an RBI single, extending his streak to 10 games.

After that, the Rays switched to the power offense.

Danny Jansen homered to lead off the fourth, and with two outs Junior Caminero crushed a Sawyer Gipson-Long fastball 408 feet to the right of center that left his bat at 109.6 mph.

They made it 8-1 in the seventh when Morel homered to left.

Ryan Pepiot worked five innings, allowing just one run in the fourth when the Tigers combined a hit batter, a single and an infield out into a run.

He allowed only three hits on the day, walked two and struck out seven, throwing 96 pitches.

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