Tampa Bay Rays walk off on Sean Rodriguez home run (Video)
By Hayden Kane
The Tampa Bay Rays needed this win.
Coming off an odd loss Wednesday night and trying to notch a quality win against the class of the American League, the Rays were down to their last strike on Thursday. The Oakland Athletics were likely getting ready to shake hands once again; they had the lead, they had a quality reliever on the mound in Luke Gregerson, and they just needed one more pitch.
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Instead it was Desmond Jennings of the Rays who came through with a huge hit to drive in a run and tie the game at 2-2. That set up a showdown between the light-hitting Sean Rodriguez and the presumably shell-shocked Gregerson.
Rodriguez got a pitch on the inner half of the plate, turned on it, and sent it into the corner of the bleachers to complete the dramatic comeback. With that home run, the Rays scored four runs with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning and earned their first walk-off victory of the season.
The Rays, trying to get things on track as they get healthy (starter Alex Cobb returned on Thursday), will stay home to take on the Boston Red Sox in some key divisional games this weekend.
Check out video of the deciding home run below: