Yandy Díaz and his Tampa Bay Rays teammates are inching closer to Major League Baseball history.
The Cuban-born professional baseball infielder and his Rays team members have run their season-opening win streak to 11 games, moving closer to history by defeating the Boston Red Sox 7-2 on Tuesday night.
Díaz and Brandon Lowe hit back-to-back solo shots with two out in the fifth inning. Lowe extended his homer streak to four straight games.
Isaac Paredes and Josh Lowe also connected for the Rays, and Shane McClanahan (3-0) struck out nine while pitching five-plus innings of one-run ball.
“This team is having a lot of fun right now, we’re doing what we need to do every single night,” Josh Lowe said in his postgame, on-field interview. “We’re just going to keep it rolling as long as we can.”
The 1987 Milwaukee Brewers and the 1982 Atlanta Braves share the MLB record for the best start to a season at 13-0. The Rays are closing in.
“We’re just getting good pitches to hit. That’s all, really,” Josh Lowe said. “We’ve all worked really hard to get to this point that we’re at right now. We’re keeping it simple, and staying within ourselves. … We’re doing our job.”
The four homers brought Tampa Bay’s total to 29, matching the major league record through 11 games set by the 2000 St. Louis Cardinals. It was the Rays’ third four-homer game of the young season.
“It’s unbelievable. Everyone kind of wrote us off about our offense,” McClanahan said. “But we believe in these guys, and they are showing why we believe in them. It’s been awesome.”
Boston’s Alex Cora has watched his club produce just three runs in this series, and that was after the Rays posted back-to-back shutouts of the Oakland Athletics. But the manager has been impressed with Tampa Bay’s offense, as well.
“They’re playing good baseball right now. They did a few things offensively that they have cleaned up compared to last year, their approach is a lot different,” Cora said. “They’re putting good swings on good pitches and hitting the ball out of the ballpark.”