Jonathan Aranda went 2-for-4 with two RBIs as the Tampa Bay Rays clinched their first series win against a National League club, prevailing 5-1 over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night in St. Petersburg, Fla.
The Rays had lost a single three-game series against all five NL Central teams in March and April before claiming the first two games against the Giants, who lost their fifth straight.
Griffin Jax made his second start and pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings with one hit, one walk and two strikeouts.
Jesse Scholtens (3-1) followed and allowed one run on four hits in three innings. He fanned three without a walk.
San Francisco’s Luis Arraez went 3-for-4 with a double and a run, accounting for nearly half of the team’s seven hits.
San Francisco right-hander Landen Roupp (5-2) surrendered four runs and eight hits in 4 1/3 innings. He struck out six and walked two.
In the second inning, Heliot Ramos hit a drive that Rays center fielder Cedric Mullins went to the 404-foot mark at the wall to catch. However, Mullins rushed in and caught it at the beginning of the warning track.
An umpire-initiated review of the shot – estimated at 424 feet – resulted in the out call standing instead of it being deemed to have hit a wire or ring in the dome, which would have made it a home run.
Giants pitcher Adrian Houser and director of major league pitching Frank Anderson were then ejected by home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.
Roupp, who had allowed just one run in 18 innings in three road starts, was sharp until the fourth when the Rays scored two batters after Junior Caminero’s groundout was challenged and overturned to an infield single. He eventually scored on Jake Fraley’s single.
Hunter Feduccia’s double, Taylor Walls’ walk and Chandler Simpson’s bunt single loaded the bases with no outs in the fifth, and Mullins plated one with a walk before Aranda chased Roupp with a two-run single to center for a 4-0 lead.
Rafael Devers broke up the shutout with a double in the sixth to plate Arraez, who also doubled.
Jonny DeLuca, who was 2-for-4 with a double, swiped third and scored on a throwing error by catcher Patrick Bailey in the eighth for the final margin.
