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<\/a>Tampa Bay fell 6-2 in defeat to the New York Yankees at Tropicana Field Wednesday night and finished its five-game homestand with a 2-3 record.\u00a0 The Rays are just 11-13 at home for the season, but will now look to improve upon their Major League-best 13-5 road mark.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s kind of weird – the last three years we\u2019ve had the so-called home-field advantage and now it\u2019s like we\u2019ve got road-field advantage,\u201d said Rays starting pitcher James Shields.\u00a0 \u201cAt least it\u2019s happening opposite and not bad on both parts.\u201d\u00a0 The club is still enjoying quite a run in registering a 23-10 record since April 11, which stands as the best record in the majors over that span.\u00a0 Tampa Bay is 11-8 versus divisional opponents this season.<\/p>\n
Rays starting pitcher Jeremy Hellickson is aiming to win his fourth game in a row and is 4-2 with a 2.98 ERA in seven starts this season.\u00a0 The right-hander is coming off his first shutout of the season, scattering four hits and issuing just a single walk at home against the Orioles.\u00a0 Hellickson is also a perfect 3-0 with a 3.04 ERA in four road starts, but has walked 13 batters and struck out just 14 in 23 2\/3 innings.\u00a0 He picked up a no decision in his only career start versus Toronto, allowing three runs and six hits over seven strong innings, as his team dropped the contest 6-4 at the Rogers Centre.<\/p>\n
Toronto has won six consecutive games and enjoyed an off day on Tuesday due to rain in the Detroit area.\u00a0 The Blue Jays will be looking to win seven straight games for the first time since a 10-game win streak from August 30-September 9, 2008.\u00a0 Outfielder Jose Bautista has played a major role in the team\u2019s recent success and leads the majors with 16 home runs.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s as professional, as complete a player, as complete a teammate as you could ever want,\u201d Blue Jays manager John Farrell stated.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s arguably the best player in the game right now.\u201d\u00a0 He is also joined by Yunel Escobar and Corey Patterson in all having eight-game hitting streaks.\u00a0 Toronto is 16-7 in night games this year.<\/p>\n
Blue Jays starting pitcher Jesse Litsch is 4-2 with a 4.14 ERA in seven starts this season and looks to extend his streak of consecutive victories.\u00a0 The right-hander has allowed four runs and 10 hits over 12 innings in his last two starts, capturing home wins over Detroit and Boston.\u00a0 \u201cSince coming back from the minors, he has put together some solid outings,\u201d said Farrell.\u00a0 Litsch has recorded an 0-3 record and 4.82 ERA in his last five starts against the Rays, but hasn\u2019t faced them since August 28, 2008.\u00a0 He has held right-handed hitters to a .145 average and lefties are hitting .344 against him.<\/p>\n
Bettors will be interested in backing the Rays due to their 8-1 record versus right-handed starters, while the Blue Jays are 4-11 in Litsch\u2019s last 15 starts versus the American League East<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays meet up in a short two-game series between American League East foes at the Rogers Centre Tampa Bay Rays at Toronto Blue Jays Tampa Bay fell 6-2 in defeat to the New York Yankees at Tropicana Field Wednesday night and finished its five-game homestand with a 2-3 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[2889,1604,2151,2401,1748,150,223],"class_list":["post-15458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-american-league-east","tag-jeremy-hellickson","tag-jesse-litsch","tag-jose-bautista","tag-rogers-centre","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15459,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15458\/revisions\/15459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}