Tampa Bay Rays vs Toronto Blue Jays

St Petersburg, Florida:  The Tampa Bay Rays played host to division rivals as they hosted the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday night at Tropicana Field in the first game of a three game series.  The Rays jumped out to an early lead only to watch the bullpen falter in the late innings resulting in an 8-4 loss for the home team.

Both starting pitchers, Chris Archer for Tampa Bay and Francisco Liriano for Toronto were dialed in to start the night.  They posted zeroes to the scoreboard for the first three innings of the game.

The Rays broke the scoreless tie in the bottom of the forth.  Daniel Robertson and Derek Norris delivered back to back homer to put the Rays in front.  Later in the inning, they loaded the bases and Steven Souza Jr drew a bases loaded walk to score Tim Beckham and give the Rays a 3-0 lead.

Toronto scored their first run of the evening in the fifth inning.  Justin Smoak hit an RBI single to center, scoring Kendrys Morales to make it 3-1.

Morales crossed the plate again in the top of the seventh when he struck a two run homer to right center to pull the Blue Jays within a run of the lead, 3-2.

The Rays extended their lead to a pair by scoring in the home half of the seventh.  Robertson drove home Evan Longoria to extend the lead to 4-2.

The Blue Jays put the game out of reach with a big eighth inning.  Devon Travis scored on an RBI double by Kevin Pillar.  Then Morales went deep to right for his second homer run, a three run shot to give them the lead.  Smoak also went yard to hand the Rays a 8-4 loss.

Jumbo Diaz suffered the loss for the Rays.  Aaron Loup was the winning pitcher for Toronto.

Click on the photo above to see my Rays/Blue Jays photo gallery.