The legend of Evan Longoria continues to grow. Longoria has been in the major leagues for about a month and already has a couple game winning home runs. Longoria hit a two run homer in the 13th inning to lead the Rays to a 7-6 win in Oakland on Monday night. The win bumps the Rays record on the season to 26-19.
James Shields started for the Rays and did not have his top stuff. Shields went 7.2 innings and gave up five runs. Coming up big for the Rays was Jason Hammel who threw three scoreless innings to pick up his third win of the season after starting the season in the starting rotation. Troy Percival gave up a run in the bottom of the 13th inning but still got his 12th save of the season.
The A’s got out to a 3-0 lead early in the game but the Rays bats battled them back into the game. Longoria, along with his game winner, had three hits on the game driving in three runs and scoring one. Eric Hinske hit a two run homer in the fifth inning to help get the Rays back into this game. Hinske had two hits, as did catcher Dioner Navarro. As usual, the Rays Achilles heal in this game was strike outs as the struck out an astounding 15 times in this game.
The Rays and A’s will play another late game tonight in the second game of their series. Scott Kazmir will start for the Rays. Game time is 10:05 pm.
