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Rays beat Rangers 6-2, June 30, 2019

07/01/2019

Snell (5-7, 4.87 ERA) struck out 12 over six innings for just his second win in 10 starts and the Tampa Bay Rays (cheap Olympic Champion Rings championship rings) beat the Texas Rangers 6-2 on Sunday.

"The way that I feel and what I'm doing I believe it's better than last year," Snell, the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner, said. "Consistency, swing-and-miss, strikes, less walks, weak contact, everything. The only thing that's bad is ERA and length that I'm going in starts."

Snell gave up three hits during an 80-pitch outing. He had an 11.94 ERA (17 1/3 innings, 23 earned runs) in five previous starts this month.

"Did a lot of things actually very similar to what he's been doing," Rays manager Kevin Cash said. "Just a little better at command and location to those pitches."

Snell threw first-pitch strikes to 17 of 20 batters.

"He wasn't really doing that before," Rangers manager Chris Woodward said. "When he's ahead in the count, he's a Cy Young winner for a reason."

Tommy Pham homered for the Rays, who won consecutive games for the first time since June 9-10. The first AL wild card leaders went 13-16 in June.

Four Tampa Bay (custom championship rings) relievers completed a four-hitter that included 17 strikeouts.

Texas got a two-run homer from Joey Gallo.

After Kevin Kiermaier had an RBI single and Willy Adames added a run-scoring single off Jesse Chavez (3-3) the fourth, Pham's fifth-inning solo shot made it 4-2.

Chavez allowed four runs and five hits in six innings.

Kiermaier had an RBI triple in a two-run eighth.

Gallo's two-run homer in the fourth off Snell got stuck on the "D-Ring" catwalk, which is approximately 70-feet above the right-field seats.

"I didn't notice that it didn't come down," Gallo said. "But that was a pretty cool home run off a guy who's really nasty."

Gallo had the only Texas (MLB Teams championship rings) hit through three innings, a leadoff bunt single in the second against a shift that had four outfielders and three infielders on the first-base side of second.

He was thrown out on another bunt attempt in the seventh against Colin Poche with a runner on first and no outs, and Texas trailing 4-2.

"Obviously a lot came into play," said Gallo, who talked with Woodward about the situation before the at-bat. "It's a tough lefty who struck me out the day before. Obviously if I lay one down and get it a little more over to the left, we're having a different conversation about it."

Cash was ejected by plate umpire Bruce Dreckman in the second for arguing after Avisail Garcia took a called third strike.

"Bruce Dreckman does a tremendous job," Cash said. "We just didn't see eye-to-eye."