The Tampa Bay Rays took game one of their series against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday night. The Rays got some terrific pitching from Andy Sonnanstine who helped lead them to a 3-1 victory. The surprising Rays are now 25-17 this season.
Sonnanstine was terrific once again on the mound as he improved his record this season to 6-1. Sonnanstine pitched eight innings, giving up only one run on eight hits. He struck out four and the key was in his walking no one. He threw 76 strikes and 22 balls, his control was remarkable. Troy Percival threw a scoreless ninth inning to pick up his 11th save of the season.
The Rays jumped out to a 3-0 off of Braden Looper of the Cardinals. In the third inning they got RBI singles from Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena. They tacked on one more run in the fourth inning on an Akinori Iwamura RBI single. Iwamura, hitting lead off, led the Rays with three hits tonight. Longoria, Bartlett and Sonnanstine had two hits apiece.
The Rays and Cardinals will go it again tomorrow afternoon. Matt Garza, coming off a nice start against the Yankees will start for the Rays. Game time is 1:10pm.
