By MATT PIKE
The Tampa Bay Rays got five strong innings from Griffin Jax and Yandy Díaz tied the Tampa Bay franchise record for career RBI's helping the Rays defeat the Kansas City Royals 5-3 at Tropicana Field.
Nick Fortes and Díaz opened the scoring in the third when they both scored after Royals first baseman Jac Caglianone fielded Ryan Vilade's grounder and stepped on the bag for the out, but then his throw home went wide of catcher Salvador Perez. Jonathan Aranda added an RBI single, driving in Junior Caminero, to put the Rays up 3-0.
In the fourth inning, Díaz hammered a line drive to left field to tie B.J. Upton's franchise mark of 447 RBI, scoring Taylor Walls, and extending the Tampa Bay lead before Jonny DeLuca followed with an RBI double, bringing home Díaz. Kansas City finally managed to get on the board, and chip away at the Rays lead in the fifth inning when Carter Jensen and Jac Caglianone scored after consecutive errors by Walls and Chandler Simpson.
The error on Walls allowed Caglianone to reach base, and advance to second, before the error on Simpson happened on a fly ball by Salvador Perez, which would have ended the inning with two outs on the board, but it popped out of his glove allowing Jensen and Caglianone to score making it 5-2.
Josh Rojas added his first homer of the season in the ninth to pull within 5-3 for the final run of the game. Noah Cameron took the loss, falling to 4-5 on the season, giving up all five runs on eight hits in five innings of work while striking out five and walking three.
At the plate for the Royals, Jensen stayed hot extending his hitting streak to 15 games with a single on the first pitch of the game, he was 1-for-4 with a walk on the day. Michael Massey was 2-for-4 with a double. John Rave was 1-for-3 with a double.
Kansas City and Tampa Bay wrap up their four game series tomorrow. Seth Lugo (3-4, 3.69 ERA, 66K's) takes the mound for the Royals facing Casey Legumina (2-1, 3.45 ERA, 23K's) for the Rays. First pitch will be joined at 1:10pm on KFEQ (680AM/95.3FM).
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt.