{"id":369179,"date":"2026-08-12T08:26:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T08:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/369179\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T08:26:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T08:26:36","slug":"taylor-walls-homers-from-each-side-of-the-plate-to-make-tampa-bay-rays-history-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/369179\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Walls homers from each side of the plate to make Tampa Bay Rays history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2013 Taylor Walls homered from each side of the plate in a 12-4 victory at the Athletics on Tuesday night, becoming the first switch-hitter to do that twice for the AL-leading Tampa Bay Rays.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Walls also accomplished the feat on April 18, 2023, at Cincinnati.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">The 30-year-old shortstop hit his first homer Tuesday left-handed in the fourth inning off Athletics starter Mason Barnett. Walls went deep as a right-handed hitter off reliever Brady Basso in the sixth, helping Tampa Bay win its eighth straight game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Walls is the fifth player this season to homer from both sides of the plate, joining the Chicago White Sox\u2019s Drew Romo, Colorado\u2019s Willi Castro, Pittsburgh\u2019s Bryan Reynolds, and Minnesota\u2019s Josh Bell. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Hitting his first long ball of the season, Walls ended his personal home run drought at 105 regular-season games, dating to July 27, 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Walls only has 24 home runs in 581 games in the majors, counting the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">AP MLB: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2013 Taylor Walls homered from each side of the plate in a 12-4 victory at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[149469,149471,149470,110,135,137,136,84508,149468],"class_list":["post-369179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-bryan-reynolds","tag-drew-romo","tag-josh-bell","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-taylor-walls","tag-willi-castro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369179","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=369179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}