'I'll never forget it': Wander's 1st walk-off turns frustration to elation

ST. PETERSBURG -- Wander Franco finished his smooth left-handed swing, dropped his bat on the dirt behind him and watched the ball fly. As he stepped out of the batter’s box, he raised his right hand to the sky, looked toward the Rays’ dugout and slapped his chest. The lights strobed, a horn blared and Tampa Bay’s All-Star shortstop chucked his helmet toward the dugout before starting a trot he’ll remember forever.

All the potential frustration of Friday night’s nightmare ninth inning? Whatever slump derailed Franco for a few weeks in July? That all disappeared as quickly as Franco’s first walk-off home run sailed over the right-field seats to bang off the back wall at Tropicana Field.

After watching the bullpen let a four-run lead go to waste, Franco turned Tampa Bay’s anger into elation and continued an unbelievable stretch at the plate by crushing his first Major League walk-off hit to deliver the Rays a wild 9-8 win over the Guardians.

“I'll never forget it,” Franco said through interpreter Manny Navarro.

The Rays would have preferred to avoid any such drama, as Aaron Civale pitched five solid innings in his Tropicana Field debut and Isaac Paredes gave them a one-run lead in the sixth with his 23rd home run. Tampa Bay tacked on three runs in the seventh to build a comfortable lead.

But Jason Adam allowed a solo homer to Myles Straw, who hadn’t homered in nearly two years spanning 298 games and 1,041 at-bats. And things got worse in the ninth.

Pete Fairbanks’ command disappeared entirely, as only 12 of his 30 pitches were strikes. He walked José Ramírez on four pitches, then Kole Calhoun on five, then hit Ramón Laureano with a full-count pitch.

Cleveland pulled within one run on a pair of wild pitches, and Fairbanks walked Bo Naylor before manager Kevin Cash summoned Robert Stephenson to try to nail down the final out. But Stephenson immediately uncorked a wild pitch that skipped away from catcher Christian Bethancourt and brought home the tying run.

“Sightlines were off. Not a lot of strikes. That was it,” Fairbanks said. “Thought it was [expletive], and I'm not really going to elaborate on it. … So we flush it, and we get back at it tomorrow.”

But Franco wouldn’t let the disappointment linger for long, much less into Saturday. The 22-year-old led off the bottom of the ninth looking for an offspeed pitch from reliever Nick Sandlin. He got three in a row, took the first two, then unloaded on a hanging slider and sent it a Statcast-projected 411 feet to right field for his 17th homer of the season.

Franco knew it was gone the second he made contact.

“It was good. We never keep our head down,” Franco said through Navarro. “We kept it up. We kept the faith.”

As far as Franco could recall, it was his first walk-off hit since he was an 18-year-old playing for Single-A Bowling Green in 2019. It was just another highlight amid a seemingly endless stream of them lately.

“Picked us up in a big way,” Cash said. “He has been on a tear.”

Franco struggled through much of the previous month, hitting just .162 with a .511 OPS in 20 games from July 1-26. He has been on another level over the past two weeks, though, going 22-for-51 (.431) with six homers, 11 RBIs, 14 runs and more walks (seven) than strikeouts (four) over the past 13 games.

“I think when he was scuffling a little bit offensively, he was hitting a lot of pitcher's pitches and trying to do too much with probably some balls out of the zone,” Cash said, commending the quality of Franco’s at-bats. “It does not look like his timing has been off, and that's probably because he's on pitches that he can handle.”

It’s no coincidence that the Rays, who also struggled through July, are 8-5 during Franco’s torrid stretch. And he has been even better lately, recording multiple hits in five of his past six games while going 14-for-24 (.583) and not striking out in any of his past 27 plate appearances. Plus he has played Gold Glove-caliber defense, and he stole his 30th base in the third inning Friday.

“I'm just going out there and just playing my game,” Franco said through Navarro. “Just showing off my talent the best I can, and thank God I'm able to show that.”

After Franco jogged around the bases, his teammates greeted him at home plate by showering him with gum, water, ice and whatever else they could find. During Franco’s postgame TV interview on the field, Brandon Lowe and Josh Lowe dumped a cooler of ice water on his shoulders.

The home run was nice. The celebration wasn’t bad, either.

“That,” Franco said in English, “was fun.”