OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Yandy Diaz slugged baseball’s lowest spender into a matchup with mighty Houston, Charlie Morton silenced the powerful Athletics on the mound, and the Tampa Bay Rays beat Oakland at its own game 5-1 in the AL wild-card round Wednesday night.
Diaz hit a leadoff homer and went deep again in the third inning. Avisail Garcia hit a two-run drive in the second, and Morton had all the support he needed as Tampa Bay advanced to face the AL West champion Astros in a best-of-five Division Series after Houston won a major league-best 107 games this season.
Tommy Pham homered in the fifth for the 96-win Rays, who had the smallest payroll in the majors at $66.4 million. They were unfazed by the towel-swirling Oakland home crowd of 54,005 that established a wild-card record, having recently played at Dodger Stadium and also on the road against the Yankees and Red Sox in the season’s final two weeks.
The Rays raced out of their dugout to celebrate when Marcus Semien struck out to end it, and then started putting on fresh playoff T-shirts and caps.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.