{"id":395709,"date":"2026-09-10T10:21:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T10:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/395709\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T10:21:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T10:21:25","slug":"mesa-jr-hits-homer-in-support-of-jax-as-rays-top-braves-7-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/395709\/","title":{"rendered":"Mesa Jr. hits homer in support of Jax as Rays top Braves 7-2"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Victor Mesa Jr.<\/a> had two hits, including a home run, Griffin Jax gave up only two hits and one run in five innings and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Atlanta Braves 7-2 on Wednesday night to clinch the series win in the matchup of division leaders.<\/p>\n

Including a 7-1 win<\/a> on Tuesday night, the Rays have outscored the Braves 14-3 in the first two games of the three-game series.<\/p>\n

AL East-leading Tampa Bay hit four homers in Tuesday night’s win. Mesa’s homer was the Rays’ only extra-base hit on Wednesday night, but Tampa Bay outhit Atlanta 10-3 and added three steals. Jorge Mateo had a two-run single in a three-run second inning.<\/p>\n

Drake Baldwin’s homer in the fourth was the only run allowed by Jax (7-10).<\/p>\n

The Rays remained four games ahead of the New York Yankees in the AL East with a magic number of four to clinch their first postseason berth since 2023. The Braves saw their NL East lead over Philadelphia reduced to three games.<\/p>\n

Braves right-hander Reynaldo L\u00f3pez (4-4) allowed six runs in 4 2\/3 innings in his first appearance since July 26.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez was reinstated from the injured list after missing 34 games with left knee inflammation. Right-hander Elieser Hern\u00e1ndez was designated for assignment, left-hander Bailey Falter was recalled and right-hander Bryce Elder<\/a> was placed on the 15-day injured list following right knee surgery on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Falter pitched two perfect innings with one strikeout.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Braves LHP Mart\u00edn P\u00e9rez (8-9, 3.25) i<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Victor Mesa Jr. had two hits, including a home run, Griffin Jax gave up only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2205,28,115,29645,110,135,3815,137,136],"class_list":["post-395709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-associated-press","tag-florida","tag-news","tag-professional-baseball","tag-sports","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395709","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=395709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}