The hard throwing right hander goes 5.2 innings without allowing a hit, surrenders no runs to Nationals.
Nathan Eovaldi turned in his best start of the season going a solid six shutout innings while striking out nine Nationals Tuesday afternoon. There was a little hiccup in the fourth inning where Eovaldi hit a batter and allowed two walks, however, a base running error by the Nationals allowed Eovaldi to escape without a blemish. The impressive outing gives Eovaldi his second win of the season and lowered his ERA from 4.91 to 4.08 while still maintaining a sub one WHIP.
The offense didn’t do much today, but against future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer, they did enough – and against a pitcher of that caliber, that’s all you can ask for.
The Rays managed just four hits off of Scherzer and got their lone run on a Jake Bauers fielders choice in the first inning. Bauers now owns a streak of four straight games with an RBI. The rookie also recorded the first stolen base of his career.
Ramos the All-Star?
Wilson Ramos continued his hot home stand with a single in the eighth inning. He’s currently the leading vote getter at catcher in the American League, ahead of New York Yankees catcher, Gary Sanchez, who was just placed on the DL. Voting for the All-Star ends July 5th.
Ramos will be the first Rays positional player to start in the All-Star game since Carl Crawford, Evan Longoria and David Price started in 2010.
*Corey Dickerson started at DH last year.
Streaking Rays
The win completes back to back sweeps of the Yankees and Nationals, bringing their winning streak to five games. They currently have an eight game winning streak at Tropicana Field. This was the Rays third shutout in the past four days.
Ninth inning switcheroos
Kevin Cash got a little creative to end the game as he managed to make a scorekeepers nightmare come true. Jose Alvarado came into the game to face Bryce Harper to start the ninth. Harper walked, which lead to Chaz Roe entering the game to pitch to Anthony Rendon, however, with lefty Juan Soto on deck, Alvarado moved to first base, which moved Jake Bauers to left field, which moved Mallex Smith to right field. After Roe struck out Rendon, Alvarado then moved back to the mound, Carlos Gomez technically replaced Roe and played right field, Smith moved back to left field and Bauers moved back to first base. Or, something like that.
Next Up
The Rays get an off day on Wednesday before they continue their homestead against the reigning World Series champion, Houston Astros. Ryne Stanek (1-1, 1.99) will square off against Lance McCuller Jr. (8-3, 3.82) in the series opener.
