Yandy Diaz homered twice and Matt Thaiss scored twice and drove in four runs Friday following a 50-minute rain delay helping the host Tampa Bay Rays to a 14-8 victory over the Detroit Tigers.
Curtis Mead scored three times and drove in a run for Tampa Bay (42-34) which has won six of its last eight games. Rays starter Shane Baz (7-3) struck out six and allowed five runs on four hits over 5 1/3 innings.
The Rays improved to an MLB-best 21-8 since May 20 and it is the sixth time this season that they have scored 10 or more runs at home.
Riley Greene led the Tigers (48-29) with two home runs and four runs driven in.
The Rays opened up a 4-0 lead in the first inning. Diaz led off with his 11th home run of the season while Mead singled to score Jake Mangum. Mead and Jonathan Aranda came home on Thaiss’s double.
Detroit cut it to 4-3 in the third when Greene blasted a homer 432 feet to center field, scoring Trey Sweeney and Gleyber Torres.
Tampa Bay broke the game open in the third with four more runs. Taylor Walls doubled with the bases loaded to bring home Mead and Josh Lowe then Thaiss was able to score when a throw from Parker Meadows bounced off third base. Walls closed the scoring on Kameron Misner’s squeeze bunt.
Diaz picked up his second homer in the fifth inning on a 356-foot blast to right field.
Meadows and Dillon Dingler added runs in the sixth inning to pull the Tigers within 9-5, but Tampa Bay countered with an RBI double by Josh Lowe and a Thaiss run-scoring single.
Greene nailed his 17th homer of the year in the eighth, and the Rays answered with a Thaiss two-run base knock and Misner’s RBI single.
Detroit’s Colt Keith closed the scoring in the ninth when he belted a home run to score Javier Baez.
Detroit starter Jack Flaherty (5-8) lasted only 2 1/3 innings and allowed eight runs on six hits. It is the second straight game that he was pulled early. Flaherty allowed seven runs on five hits — including three homers — and five walks in 4 2/3 innings last Saturday in an 11-1 loss to Cincinnati.
