ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — For all the right things the Rays made sure to say about the Blue Jays being a tough opponent, they had no trouble with them in the first round of baseball’s expanded postseason.
An 8-2 win Wednesday afternoon that was decided early made it a quick two-game sweep and sent the Rays on to San Diego for a best-of-five neutral-site American League Division Series matchup against either the Indians or the Yankees.
If it’s the Yankees, who led that series 1-0 going into play Wednesday, it’s a team the Rays beat up during the season, 8-2, and sparred with along the way.
Words were exchanged several times during the season but most pointedly after the Sept. 1 game, when Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman threw a 100 mph pitch at the head of Rays infielder Mike Brosseau and the benches and bullpens emptied.
Rays manager Kevin Cash then issued a stinging soliloquy, criticizing the “poor” judgment, coaching and teaching by the Yankees, among other things, and delivering the threat now captured on a series of T-shirts:
“I’ve got a whole damn stable full of guys that throw 98 miles an hour. Period.”
If it’s the Indians, then it’s a team that will have the momentum of beating the Yankees two straight and one the Rays haven’t seen since last year.
The Blue Jays weren’t much of a match for the Rays, who looked very much like the team that rolled through the regular season with an American League-best 40- 20 record and earned the top seed in the expanded and reformatted playoffs by taking care of business.
“You’d like to have a team that puts those blinders on, shows tunnel vision, worry and concern and preparing for us, prepare for us, don’t get caught up and consumed with all the other outside factors,” Cash said before the game.
After a tense 3-1 win in Tuesday’s opener of the AL Wild Card Series, the Rays broke Wednesday’s game open by scoring early and often, highlighted by a six-run second inning featuring a two-run homer by Mike Zunino and a grand slam by Hunter Renfroe.
All that and more came against ace lefty Hyun Jin Ryu, whom the Blue Jays strategically pushed back to Game 2 as part of a “creative” strategy they insisted gave them the best chance to win.
The Rays came out swinging against Ryu, rapping four hits and having a fifth batter reach on an error but, somehow, only scored one run, as Manuel Margot singled in Randy Arozarena (who had three hits and a walk for the day).
They made up for it in the second. Kevin Kiermaier led off with a single, then Zunino, who hit four homers and hit .147 in an injury-interrupted regular season, crushed an 88 mph fastball to left. The Rays loaded the bases around a couple of outs on a double by Arozarena, a walk by Yandy Diaz and a second error by Jays shortstop Bo Bichette, the Lakewood High product, and then Renfroe knocked an 85 mph cutter over the leftfield wall.
Renfroe might have been motivated to get to the division series as he gets to go back to San Diego, where he played his first four big-league seasons before being traded to the Rays in December.
As they got Tuesday from Blake Snell, the Rays got strong starting pitching in Game 2. Tyler Glasnow worked six solid innings, allowing only a pair of solo homers by Danny Jansen, and struck out eight.
Glasnow has won six straight decisions and ran his streak of at least seven strikeouts to nine straight games.
With no games until Monday, the Rays used Aaron Loup, Ryan Thompson and Nick Anderson to finish.
The win was the Rays’ first in a multigame postseason series since the 2008 AL Championship Series against the Red Sox.
The Rays had lost their past five, including division series in 2019 (to the Astros), 2013 (Red Sox), 2011 (Rangers) and 2010 (Rangers) and the 2008 World Series (to the Phillies).
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