The Rays swept the Seattle Mariners with death by a thousand cuts on Sunday, dominating the Mariners who had the look of a team ready to go home, tallying 14 hits on a sunny day in the pacific northwest.
Hicks proved his worth when the Rays had runners on the corners in the sixth inning and the Mariners opted to intentionally walk Junior Caminero to load the bases and hope for an easy groundball. Normally this might expose the small-ball elements of the Rays offense, but with Hicks hitting fourth there is protection in a way the AL leaders in wins did not have before the deadline.
Hicks sliced it the other way, scoring two as former Rays star Randy Arozarena seemingly jogged over to the ball.
Ian Seymour, in his fourteenth career start, settled in against the Mariners, allowing one early run but otherwise cruising through six full innings, taking the burden off the bullpen that had to cover for Griffin Jax’s elbow injury before yesterday’s game, and allowing him to overcome the blemish from July 12 where hi allowed six runs and only picked up ten outs.
With those demons excised, Seymour struck out seven:
Since stretching into a starter’s workload on June 20, Seymour has a 3.46 ERA and 3.09 FIP with a 31.1% strikeout rate and 5.3% walk rate. That amounts to a contribution of 1.3 fWAR, which is 15th highest among all pitchers as of that same date, and his K-BB% ranks ninth.
Cam Booser, Casey Legumina and veteran Steven Matz — who picked up the save! — cruised through the final nine outs, allowing just one hit combined. Matz worked his sinker more than 70% of the ninth, needing only an occasional change to cruise through his second day of relief work in a row on 14 pitches.
