Rays secure series sweep over D-backs in extra innings, climb above .500

ST. PETERSBURG -- Sunday’s series finale at Tropicana Field was shaping up to be, as Rays manager Kevin Cash put it, “a frustrating extra-inning ballgame.”

The Rays lost their leadoff man, Yandy Díaz, to a left forearm contusion in the first inning. They had a combined no-hit bid and a six-run lead after six innings, then lost both of those, too. Their lights-out closer, Pete Fairbanks, gave up a game-tying, three-run homer in the ninth then exited with an injury that will send him to the injured list.

Then they whiffed on several opportunities in extra innings. Taylor Walls ran into a key out at third base after his game-tying hit in the 10th. They loaded the bases with nobody out in the 11th, needing just one run to win, but came up empty.

But that frustration mostly gave way to relief in the 12th inning, when Dylan Carlson lined a walk-off single to left field off hard-throwing reliever Justin Martinez to deliver the Rays an 8-7 win and a three-game sweep against the D-backs.

“Exciting game, you could say,” Carlson said of the three-hour, 46-minute affair -- the Rays’ longest game, by time, since last Sept. 5. “There were a lot of good things done in the game, a lot of contributions from a lot of guys. It's just good to come out on top.”

The D-backs arrived Friday as arguably the hottest team in baseball, having won nine consecutive series and 30 of their last 40 games. But the Rays cooled them off in dramatic, unusual fashion, securing only their second sweep of three games or more this season -- and their first since they swept the Mets on May 3-5.

With the sweep, the Rays remained 6 1/2 games out of the final American League Wild Card spot but climbed back above .500, at 62-61 ahead of a 10-game road trip through Oakland, Los Angeles and Seattle.

“It was nice to bounce back with some tight games, big wins,” Cash said. “We needed a lot of contributions from hitting, defense and certainly the pitching, and we do feel good getting ready to get on a flight to go out West.”

But this one didn’t come easy, or without a cost, despite a promising start.

It seemed like the Rays might be able to cruise to victory as they built a six-run lead while opener Drew Rasmussen and bulk-innings lefty Tyler Alexander held the D-backs hitless until the seventh inning.

But Corbin Carroll dropped a leadoff single into left field against Alexander in the seventh and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly, then Carroll hit a two-run homer off Alexander in the eighth.

Fairbanks, who allowed a game-tying homer to Carroll in the ninth on Friday night, allowed a leadoff single to Jake McCarthy and walked Joc Pederson. With one out, the right-hander left a breaking ball over the plate that Del Castillo hammered out to right-center.

Two batters later, Fairbanks threw a pitch, immediately signaled that he needed to come out of the game, rotated his right shoulder and exited the game.

Fairbanks did not speak to reporters after the game, but he is expected to head to the injured list and will undergo an MRI on Monday, with the concern being his right lat. Fairbanks sustained a right lat strain in Spring Training 2022 that cost him half the season.

The D-backs struck first in extras, scoring one run off lefty Garrett Cleavinger, but the Rays immediately evened it up.

With one out, Walls slapped a single to left field off right-hander Kevin Ginkel that scored Jackson from second base, tying the game. But Walls was thrown out trying to reach third base on the play, and all the Rays managed after that was a Carlson single and a stolen base before Christopher Morel struck out to end the inning.

The Rays whiffed on an even better opportunity in the 11th. The D-backs intentionally walked Brandon Lowe -- who drilled a two-run homer in the third -- to begin the inning, then Martinez hit José Caballero with a first-pitch sinker to load the bases. But Jose Siri and Junior Caminero struck out, and Alex Jackson tapped a ball back to the mound.

“A lot of ups and downs,” Lowe said of the game. “A lot of back-and-forth.”

But they came out on top in the end. Jonny DeLuca dropped a sacrifice bunt to advance Jackson to third base. Walls then worked a walk, and with Arizona’s infield in, Carlson slapped a 1-1 splitter from Martinez the other way to end a wild day with his first career walk-off hit.

“I've come up in a lot of situations and haven't come through,” Carlson said. “So to come up there and come through now, it definitely felt good.”