Rays Earn A Split In Thursday's Split-Squad Action

 In a tale of polar opposites, the Rays earned a split during Thursday's spring training games. One half of the Rays suffered a major blow by the Detroit Tigers as they gave up 8 runs on 15 hits in the loss. Then on the other end of the spectrum, the traveling Rays squad threw nine shut-out innings to defeat the Minnesota Twins on the road.

At Charlotte Sports Park, the Rays could not handle the red-hot bats of the Tigers as they lost 8-1.

The Tigers jumped out to an early lead in the third inning when Delmon Young went deep with a three run blast to put the Tigers ahead 3-0.

The Rays scored their lone run in the fourth inning. Matt Mangini singled home Jeff Keppinger to bring the Rays within two runs of the lead 3-1. 

Then the Tigers offense struck for three more runs in the sixth inning. This time it was James McCann, Brennan Boesch and Miguel Cabrera doing the damage by each driving home a run to increase their lead to 6-1.

The Tigers pushed across two more runs in the eighth inning on two run single by Audy Ciriaco to hand the Rays a 8-1 loss.

Cesar Ramos was charged with the loss for the Rays.

David Price made the start for the Rays but was pulled following two scoreless innings with neck spasms. 

Meanwhile just under an hour south of Charlotte Sports Park, the second Rays squad was locked into a pitchers duel with the Twins at Hammond Stadium.

The games lone run came in the top of the ninth inning when Tim Beckham reached on an error, allowing Hak-Ju Lee to score and gave the Rays the hard-fought 1-0 victory.

Matt Torra recording the victory for the Rays and improved to 1-0 on the spring.

Notable Performances 

• Chris Archer pitched 2 scoreless innings. 
• Bryan Augenstein pitched 3 shut-out innings. 
• Matt Bush pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings. 
• Desmond Jennings was 2 for 3. 
• Jeff Keppinger had a double. 
• Jake McGee pitched a no-hit inning with 2 K's. 
• David Price pitched 2 scoreless innings. 
• Fernando Rodney pitched a shut-out inning. 
• Albert Suarez pitched a no-hit inning. 
• Matt Torra pitched 1 1/3 no-hit innings to record the win. 

A Look Ahead: The Rays host the Baltimore Orioles on Friday at Charlotte Sports Park. Alex Cobb will make the start followed by Alex Torres, JP Howell, Jhonny Nunez and Ryan Reid. Jake Arrieta will start for the Orioles.