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Four homers in final two innings rally Rays past Blue Jays (w/video)

 
Blake Snell gives up only two runs against the Blue Jays but throws 96 pitches in five innings, 43 of them balls.
Blake Snell gives up only two runs against the Blue Jays but throws 96 pitches in five innings, 43 of them balls.
Published April 29, 2017

TORONTO — Blake Snell gave the Rays another too-short start Friday and more reasons to wonder if he really is ready to be a key part of their rotation.

But his teammates again showed the ability to finish strong, turning the bad beginning into a happy ending by rallying for a 7-4 win over the struggling Blue Jays.

The Rays evened their record at 12-12 by flexing their muscles, flipping a 3-1 deficit into a 5-3 advantage by hitting three home runs in the eighth inning — by Corey Dickerson (his sixth), Evan Longoria (fourth), and Logan Morrison (fifth).

Of some urgency, it allowed them to put Wednesday's debacle in Baltimore, when they took the lead in the 11th and then blew it on a walkoff walk, behind them.

Of some relevance, it was the eighth time in their 12 wins, and fifth in the past six, that they came from behind, a characteristic that portends well for the rest of the season.

"You hope so — those are the kind that tend to catapult you forward," Longoria said. "We needed that one. It's just a really good job staying in the game nine innings. … It shows some really good resilience by the ballclub being able to put that one (in Baltimore) behind us."

The Rays hadn't been able to do much over the first seven innings due to dazzling performance by Toronto starter Marcus Stroman, who held them to five hits while striking out 10. They needed some extraordinary efforts to keep the game close, including three highlight-quality catches alone by rightfielder Steven Souza Jr., who made the Rays strategy of playing shallow early in the game work.

But they erased all that with a power show in the eighth inning, the first time in their 3,100-game history they hit three homers in an eighth or later inning.

"I was really impressed with the way the guys just continued to battle," manager Kevin Cash said. "We were patient enough and got something going."

Dickerson got them started, hitting Stroman's first pitch of the eighth an estimated 398 feet and over the wall in left center. Then Longoria greeted reliever Jason Grilli by knocking a 3-2 pitch over the centerfield fence, an estimated 422 feet. And then Morrison delivered the biggest blow, crushing a 1-0 pitch from Dominic Leone into the second deck restaurant area in centerfield, a blast with an exit velocity of 107 mph and a somewhat conservatively estimated distance of 428 feet.

As for Snell, the Rays still need to see more out of the second-year lefty as for the fourth straight start he failed to last more than five innings.

He insisted that bottom line it was a good night: "Kept the team in the game, we got the win, that's all that matters.''

But strike-throwing continues to be the big issue.

His search for improvement led him to try to simplify his delivery, specifically by abandoning his full windup that has lots of action. Snell started working out of the stretch without runners on base at times during his April 17 start in Boston and exclusively the last time out vs. Houston.

After a good between-starts bullpen session, he returned to the full windup Friday, but the results weren't any better. He allowed six hits and three walks, needing 96 pitches to get 15 outs and missing the strike zone with 43 of them.

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"There is always progress, always good and bad I'm going to take from it," he said. "I'm happy in the direction I'm going, I'm confident that I'm going to get better. I'm excited to see what I can do my next outing."

Cash was relatively pleased.

"There's still work to go for him, no doubt about it," he said. "I know he wants to pitch deeper in the game. We want him to pitch deeper in the game. That's a good start in the right direction."

Even more credit goes to those who pitched behind Snell, especially rookie Austin Pruitt who worked three impressive innings to pick up his third win. After Jumbo Diaz faltered a bit in the ninth, Cash turned to Chase Whitley, who got the final two outs for his first major-league save.