{"id":359004,"date":"2026-07-31T16:37:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T16:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359004\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T16:37:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T16:37:18","slug":"cedric-mullins-homers-in-the-eighth-inning-lifting-rays-over-the-rangers-3-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359004\/","title":{"rendered":"Cedric Mullins homers in the eighth inning, lifting Rays over the Rangers 3-2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tampa<\/a>Tampa Bay Rays’ Cedric Mullins is greeted in the dugout after hitting a home run during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Texas Rangers, Thursday, July 30, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo\/Jason Behnken)<\/p>\n

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Cedric Mullins hit a go-ahead home run in the eighth inning, Jonny DeLuca also went deep and seven pitchers combined on a two-hitter for the Tampa Bay Rays in a 3-2 victory over the Texas Rangers on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Bryan Baker converted his 30th save of the season and 19th in a row with a scoreless ninth. Garrett Cleavinger (3-3) picked up the win as AL East-leading Tampa Bay moved a season-best 20 games over .500 (64-44).<\/p>\n

Ben Peoples (0-1) took the loss.<\/p>\n

Mullins hit his 13th homer with two outs in the eighth, looping an opposite field fly ball that landed beyond the short wall down the left-field line on the first pitch he saw from Peoples.<\/p>\n

Texas threatened in the ninth after Nickey Lopez won two ABS challenges on third-strike calls to draw a leadoff walk. But Victor Mesa Jr. tracked down a line drive into the right-field corner to deny pinch-hitter Evan Carter of extra bases before Baker escaped with a strikeout of Ezequiel Duran to end the game with runners on first and second.<\/p>\n

The Rays went in front in the third on a two-out double by Hunter Feduccia followed by a single from Yandy Diaz.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay starter McClanahan allowed the first two batters to reach in the fourth before\u00a0getting pulled from the game because of back tightness<\/a>. After Duran took third on a fly ball, pinch-hitter Joc Pederson hit a ground ball up the middle that was fumbled by Taylor Walls, allowing Duran to score.<\/p>\n

Wyatt Langford doubled in Alejandro Osuna from first base to put Texas in front in the fifth before DeLuca hit a 415-foot homer to left field in the sixth to tie the game.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Rangers: Open a series at Houston on Friday with RHP Nathan Eovaldi (10-8, 4.05 ERA) starting against Astros RHP Hunter Brown (2-1, 3.45).<\/p>\n

Rays: Host the White Sox beginning Friday with RHP Nick Martinez (10-2, 2.45) starting against Chicago RHP Erick Fedde (5-6, 4.25).<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB:\u00a0https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Rays’ Cedric Mullins is greeted in the dugout after hitting a home run during the eighth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200,3815,54141],"class_list":["post-359004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-texas-rangers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}