Jose Siri hit a go-ahead two-run homer and Ryan Pepiot allowed just two runs in six innings as the Tampa Bay Rays beat the host Oakland A’s 4-2 on Wednesday.
Tampa Bay has won the past two games and will try to capture the four-game series in the finale on Thursday.
The game was tied 2-2 when Jose Caballero drew a leadoff walk from Oakland starter Mitch Spence in the seventh inning. Siri then crushed an 0-2 slider 423 feet to left-center, his 16th homer of the season and second in two nights, helping the Rays win for the fifth time in six games.
“He hung a pitch with two strikes and I was able to connect,” Siri said postgame through a team interpreter.
Pepiot (7-5), on his 27th birthday, gave up a solo homer to JJ Bleday in the first and a Brent Rooker RBI single in the sixth. He yielded three hits, struck out five and walked one, largely looking sharp in his second start since coming off the 15-day injured list last week.
Tampa Bay trailed 1-0 until the fifth inning, when Jonny DeLuca had an RBI single and Yandy Diaz smacked a run-scoring double off the wall in right-center.
The Rays’ hard-throwing Drew Rasmussen replaced Pepiot to start the seventh and got into a two-out, bases-loaded jam before escaping with a strikeout of Rooker. Garrett Cleavinger pitched a scoreless eighth, and Manuel Rodriguez tossed a 1-2-3 ninth for his first save of the year.
Oakland managed just five hits while dropping to 17-12 since the All-Star break. Bleday’s homer was his fourth in the past nine games and his 17th of the year.
Spence (7-9) lost despite striking out 10 and walking just one in seven innings. He surrendered four runs on seven hits.
Both managers were ejected in the latter stages.
Rays manager Kevin Cash was tossed in the top of the seventh, his second ejection of the season, after disputing a strike call against Caballero for not getting out of the way of a Spence pitch.
Oakland manager Mark Kotsay argued after a replay ruling on a strange tag call at first base in the eighth and was ejected.
Despite the Rays’ leading late, and ultimately winning to move two games above .500, Caballero and Diaz got into an argument in the Rays’ dugout just before the bottom of the ninth and needed to be separated.
