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Minnesota captured a 2-1 victory in the third game of this four-game series against the Rays at Tropicana Field, overcoming a blown save in the ninth from new closer Matt Capps.\u00a0 \u201cAn exciting baseball game,\u201d manager Ron Gardenhire said.\u00a0 \u201cWell pitched by both sides.\u201d\u00a0 Catcher Joe Mauer was back in the lineup for a second straight day, after missing two games with a shoulder injury.\u00a0 The win last night snapped a four-game losing streak for the Twins against the Rays, which was their longest losing streak against Tampa Bay since August 2001.\u00a0 The club is 21-18 in day games this season (-50) and the total is 17-18 O\/U in those contests.\u00a0 Minnesota has also played just three games this season in domes due to moving into Target Field from the Metrodome this year, posting a 1-2 mark in this series thus far (-40).\u00a0 The Twins are still a dismal 13-18 against AL East opponents.<\/p>\n
Twins starting pitcher Kevin Slowey is 10-5 with a 4.44 ERA in 22 appearances (21 starts) this season and is coming in with a two-game winning streak.\u00a0 In those games, he has allowed just a single run and eight hits over 14 innings.\u00a0 the right-hander has managed to tally 84 strikeouts and walk just 21 batters in 119.2 frames.\u00a0 He has made 10 appearances (nine starts) away from Target Field, posting a 4-2 record and 5.44 ERA, but has surrendered seven home runs in 49.2 innings.\u00a0 Slowey has made just one lifetime start against the Rays, picking up a loss and allowing five runs and nine hits over 4.1 innings.\u00a0 In nine daytime outings (eight starts), he is an even 3-3 wit ha 5.57 ERA.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay fell back into a tie in the AL East divisional race, but have a chance to regain sole possession of the top spot with the Yankees idle on Thursday.\u00a0 Both teams are tied with the best record in baseball at 67-40.\u00a0 The Rays are 8-2 on this 11-game homestand and 34-22 overall this season at Tropicana Field (-400).\u00a0 Overall, Tampa Bay has won 10 of its last 12 games and 23 of its last 31 contests.\u00a0 The team also owns a 5-2 season series advantage over today\u2019s opponent, with each game being decided by three or fewer runs.\u00a0 The pitching staff has a combined 2.22 ERA over the last 10 home games, including an 0.51 ERA from the bullpen.\u00a0 Tampa Bay brings in an electrifying 21-10 daytime record (+840) and the total is 12-18 O\/U in those contests.\u00a0 The team is averaging 4.5 runs per game and hitting for a combined .251 average during the day, which is slightly off from its overall season numbers (5.1 RPG, .255 AVG).<\/p>\n
Rays starting pitcher Wade Davis is an even 9-9 with a 4.21 ERA in 20 starts this season and comes in with a personal win streak of four games.\u00a0 Over that span, the Rays have outscored opponents 28-13.\u00a0 The right-hander is 5-6 with a 4.05 ERA in 11 home starts this season, surrendering 12 home runs in 66.2 innings.\u00a0 He will be making just his seventh daytime start, going 2-3 with a 3.75 ERA.\u00a0 In five July outings, Davis posted a perfect 4-0 record and 3.03 ERA, which was even more impressive considering he went 0-5 with a 6.00 ERA in June.\u00a0 He will be making his second career start against the Twins, as he faced them on July 3.\u00a0 In that contest, he received a no decision, after giving up four runs and eight hits over 4.1 frames.<\/p>\n
Bettors will find the Twins producing a 4-7 mark as a road underdog of +125 to +150 this season and 4-13 in Slowey\u2019s last 17 starts versus the American League East.\u00a0 Tampa Bay is a solid 9-4 as a home favorite of -150 to -175 and a dominating 49-14 in this situation the last three years (+2,620).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Rays will look to regain sole possession of first place in the AL East standings in the series finale against the Twins. Minnesota Twins at Tampa Bay Rays Minnesota captured a 2-1 victory in the third game of this four-game series against the Rays at Tropicana Field, overcoming a blown save in the ninth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1575,990,913,240,150,1574,1513],"class_list":["post-6109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-al-east","tag-joe-mauer","tag-kevin-slowey","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tropicana-field","tag-wade-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6109","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=6109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6110,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6109\/revisions\/6110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}