OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Jose Siri hit a late go-ahead homer for the second straight game, and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Oakland Athletics 4-2 on Wednesday night.
Siri’s 423-foot, two-run blast to left in the seventh inning broke a 2-2 tie. The center fielder had been hitless in 21 at-bats prior to driving in the lone run of the game in the Rays’ 1-0 win on Tuesday with an eighth-inning solo homer. He went 2 for 4 on Wednesday.
Siri said that his homer on Tuesday helped him find his rhythm.
“When you connect with a ball like that, it gives you confidence,” Siri said through an interpreter. “It gives you a better idea of what you want to do at the plate the next at-bats after that.”
The Rays have won five of six, while the A’s lost consecutive games for just the second time since the All-Star break.
“He’s a special player,” manager Kevin Cash said of Siri. “We know … what he’s capable of doing. It’s pretty consistent defensively and the hitting is pretty streaky, but when he gets timed up at the plate, he can hit a ball a long way and really generate a lot of power. And we’re seeing it both nights.”
Rays starter Ryan Pepiot (7-5), who celebrated his 27th birthday on Wednesday, allowed two runs on three hits in six innings, making his second start since returning from a stint on the injured list following a spider bite and knee infection that led to a hospital stay. He has allowed two earned runs or fewer in seven straight starts.
Manuel Rodríguez recorded his first save of the season and Drew Rasmussen struck out Oakland’s Brent Rooker with the bases loaded and two out in the seventh.
Tampa Bay scored twice in the fifth, taking the lead on a two-out RBI double by Yandy Díaz. Díaz knocked in Jonny DeLuca, who stole second after reaching on a fielder’s choice groundout that tied the game. José Caballero and Siri led off the inning with hits.
Tempers flared in the Rays dugout late in the game, with Díaz and Caballero having to be separated. Cash said that players are passionate with the Rays sitting 6.5 games out of a playoff spot.
“We’ve got a bunch of guys that are really competing and want things to go perfectly, and sometimes they don’t,” Cash said. “It seemed like there was a little friction, but I’m very confident we’ll move on from it and be ready to go.”
Caballero echoed his manager’s comments, admitting the team is “in a bad stretch.”
“We’re not doing the best right now,” Caballero said. “I wish we would be in a playoff position, and maybe that could be one of the things that got us. Just trying to be competitors out there, and emotions got us.”
JJ Bleday gave the A’s an early lead with a solo homer in the first, and Brent Rooker hit an RBI single in the sixth to tie the game at 2-2.
A’s starter Mitch Spence (7-9) allowed four runs in seven innings and had a career-high 10 strikeouts before an announced crowd of 10,339 at the Coliseum. Spence, who also threw a career-high 105 pitches, lamented that he hung a slider to Siri, but he was focused on looking “at the positives.”
“He was throwing the ball so well,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said of Spence. “He made one bad pitch to Siri. Again, this is the same guy who beat us last night on a bad pitch. To get beat two nights in a row doesn’t feel great, but our starters have done a great job.”
Both managers were ejected from the game for arguing separate plays — Cash in the seventh after home plate umpire Brock Ballou ruled that Caballero leaned into a pitch that hit him, and Kotsay in the eighth after Miguel Andujar was picked off first.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Athletics: IF Tyler Soderstrom (wrist), who is on the 10-day injured list, played catch on Wednesday. … IF Jacob Wilson (hamstring) played seven innings at shortstop at Triple-A Las Vegas on Tuesday.
UP NEXT
RHP Osvaldo Bido (4-3, 3.40 ERA) pitches for the A’s to wrap up the four-game series with LHP Jeffrey Springs (1-1, 3.86 ERA) taking the mound for the Rays.
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