Charlie Freaking Morton brushes the Yankees away as the Rays earn a sweep to end their home stand.
ST PETERSBURG — This team, man. This Rays team is something special. The two game sweep of the New York Yankees concludes the regular season at Tropicana Field. They end the season 48-33 at the Trop and were 15-2 in their last 17 games at home.
The Rays got off to a hot start as Joey Wendle led the game with a leadoff homer and it turns out that’s all the team needed as Charlie Morton was at his best. The Rays ended the first inning with two runs as Brandon Lowe knocked in Austin Meadows for his 51st RBI of the season.
“Big. 2-0 isn’t a lot, especially against that team, but we haven’t been in that situation very often for whatever reason lately,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said when asked about Wendle’s leadoff homer. “Joey got it started – that was pretty exciting.”
Morton dazzles yet again
However, the offense wasn’t the story tonight. Tonight was all about Charlie Freaking Morton.
“Unbelievable. Amazing. I’m speechless just with the performance when we needed him most,” Cash said speaking about his anchor. “We’ve been saying that for a month or six weeks, every time he takes the ball we really need him to step up. He certainly did tonight and quieted arguably the best lineup in baseball. Outstanding performance.”
Morton threw 100 pitches in six innings of work. He had a no-hitter through 5.2 innings and finished the evening allowing one hit through six.
“I think we did a pretty good job of mixing and I think I located decently and was aggressive,” Morton said about his outing tonight. “I’m aware of keeping guys off bases. I knew that they didn’t have any hits, but I knew that I had 70+ pitches somewhere probably in the 4th or 5th. I would love to throw a no-hitter, But I’m pretty sure Cash is not going to leave me out there to throw 140 pitches no matter how well I’m throwing.”
Morton improves to 16-6 with a 3.05 ERA in a Cy Young-type season.
Avi’s insurance agency
Avisail Garcia came up big in the later innings as he singled to lead off the 6th inning and scored on a double by Matt Duffy to give the Rays a 3-0 lead. In the eighth inning, he tacked on another run for the Rays as he took a Luis Cessa slider 385 feet off the left C-ring. The homer was Garcia’s 20th of the year – giving the Rays four players with at least 20 home runs.
Up Next
The Rays 2019 regular season concludes in Toronto with a three game series against the Blue Jays that starts Friday, September 27th.
