Field Level Media
Apr 21, 2018
C.J. Cron homered twice and drove in four runs and Blake Snell tossed seven solid innings to help the Tampa Bay Rays record a 10-1 victory over the visiting Minnesota Twins on Saturday at Tropicana Field.
Denard Span went 2-for-5 with three RBIs for the Rays, who have won four of their past five games. Daniel Robertson also homered and Joey Wendle went 3-for-4 as Tampa Bay racked up 12 hits and was an impressive 7-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
Cron doubled his homer total for this season while notching his ninth career multihomer game.
Snell (3-1) allowed one run and five hits while winning his third straight decision. The left hander struck out six and didn't issue a walk.
Twins right-hander Kyle Gibson (1-1) was charged with four runs and five hits over 6 1/3 innings. Gibson struck out seven and walked one.
Brian Dozier, Robbie Grossman and Eddie Rosario had two hits apiece for Minnesota, which had nine overall.
Tampa Bay trailed 1-0 when Adeiny Hechavarria singled to right with one out in the third. One out later, Cron smacked an 0-2 changeup from Gibson over the left-field fence to put the Rays on top.
The Rays tacked on five runs in the seventh, the first run crossing when Wendle tripled to center and scored as Wilson Ramos followed with a one-hop double to the fence in right-center field.
Ramos' hit concluded Gibson's day and left-hander Gabriel Moya entered. Mallex Smith greeted Moya with a single, and one out later, Span delivered a two-run ground single to center to make it 5-1.
Cron then and smacked a 3-2 changeup off Moya over the fence in left to make it a six-run cushion.
Robertson made it 8-1 with a one-out blast to center in the eighth inning off Minnesota right-hander Tyler Kinley. Hechavarria and Span added RBI singles later in the inning.
The Twins pushed a run across in the top of the first when Dozier led off with a double, moved to third on an infield out and scored on Miguel Sano's sacrifice fly to right.
--Field Level Media