Not the prettiest effort, but Rays survive White Sox

John Romano, Tampa Bay Times on Jul 22, 2025

Published in Baseball

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TAMPA, Fla. — If you kept your eye on the scoreboard, it was a glorious night for the Rays.

Otherwise, it was a fairly uninspiring few hours of baseball.

The Rays beat the White Sox, 4-3, Tuesday night to end a mini two-game losing streak, but there wasn’t much to cheer about other than the final result. Although, considering where the Rays are in the standings, that’s probably an acceptable outcome.

The offense was mostly silent and starting pitcher Drew Rasmussen was merely OK, but the Rays were bailed out by their bullpen and now have a chance to win a second consecutive series if they can dispatch the White Sox on Wednesday.

The Rays jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the second inning and then held on by their fingernails the rest of the way. The White Sox had more hits, had the game’s only home run and the Chicago bullpen threw three shutout innings.

If it felt like nothing went Tampa Bay’s way in the previous two games, it may have been because the Rays were saving up all of their good fortune for the second inning on Tuesday.

They sent seven batters to the plate with a lone bloop single by Jose Caballero.

And still scored four runs.

White Sox pitcher Davis Martin walked three batters and committed a balk while center fielder Michael Taylor committed a throwing error, Caballero drove in a pair with a 67-mph single and Taylor Walls drove in a run with a fielder’s choice to shortstop.

That was pretty much the end of the offensive highlights.

At least for Tampa Bay.

Rasmussen, who had thrown only seven innings over his previous three starts to keep his workload down, was dominant in his first turn through the Chicago lineup, retiring all nine hitters, striking out five and not allowing a ball out of the infield.

The second time through the order did not go as well.

Rasmussen gave up a double, two singles and a walk to the first four hitters in the fourth inning. He managed to survive giving up only two runs, but he threw 32 pitches, which effectively ended his night.

The White Sox eventually cut the lead to 4-3 when Colson Montgomery greeted reliever Bryan Baker with a line drive over the right-field wall in the seventh for his first major league home run. Baker, acquired from the Orioles earlier this month, has given up four runs in his first three innings of work for the Rays.

If you take away Baker’s inning, Rays relievers Edwin Uceta, Garrett Cleavinger and Pete Fairbanks provided Tampa Bay with four shutout innings to clinch the victory.