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Tampa Bay Rays mascot with flag on map of United States
The Tampa Bay Rays left Florida for a nine-game trip through Colorado, Seattle and West Sacramento and apparently forgot losing was an available option. Tampa Bay swept all three series to finish 9-0, becoming only the second team ever to pull off a perfect road trip of at least nine games entirely in the Mountain or Pacific time zones.
The Rays did not exactly tiptoe through the West either. They won close games, launched six homers in one night and finished by beating the Athletics 8-4 on Wednesday, completing the first undefeated road trip of three or more series in franchise history.
The Rays Basically Went On Vacation And Refused To Lose
According to MLB, Tampa Bay became only the 13th team since 1900 to go at least 9-0 on a single road trip.
The geography makes it even weirder.
Only the 1977 Boston Red Sox had previously won nine or more games without a loss on one trip played entirely in the Mountain or Pacific time zones. Boston went 9-0 against the Angels, Mariners and Athletics from July 29 through Aug. 7 that year.
That means it took 49 years for another team from the East to fly across the country, live out of suitcases for three series and treat every host city like it had personally offended them.
The trip started with a sweep of the Rockies in Denver. Tampa Bay then took all three from Seattle before heading to Sutter Health Park and sweeping the A’s.
Nine games. Three cities. Three sweeps.
Most teams are thrilled to return from a West Coast trip at .500 and without three players questioning their circadian rhythm. The Rays came home with every possible win.
They also found a different way to annoy opponents almost every night.
The A’s series alone featured an eighth-inning comeback Monday, a six-homer demolition Tuesday and 15 hits Wednesday. Tampa Bay averaged 10 runs per game during that final series.
Manager Kevin Cash summed up the road trip by saying his team hit, pitched, defended and ran the bases well.
Pretty much the entire sport, then.
Tampa Bay Somehow Got Hotter The Farther It Got From Home
The most Rays part of the whole thing might be that the lineup did not rely on one superstar dragging everyone through nine games.
Liam Hicks delivered two enormous homers during the trip, including a grand slam against Colorado and a three-run shot in the finale. Taylor Walls had the go-ahead hit Monday against the A’s and then hit his first two home runs of the season Tuesday. Chandler Simpson batted .429 through the first eight games before getting Wednesday off.
Tampa Bay also went 36-for-112 with two outs on the trip, good for a .321 average and a 1.025 OPS in situations that generally make pitchers believe they are about to escape an inning.
Instead, the Rays kept extending them.
The run pushed Tampa Bay to an American League-best 74-46 and gave it a 6 1/2-game lead in the AL East entering Thursday.
There are much easier ways to establish yourself as a contender than sweeping an entire nine-game trip across three western cities.
The Rays apparently did not want one.
They boarded the flight home with nine wins, zero losses, and a road-trip achievement MLB had not seen out West since disco was still a reasonable nightlife decision.