ST. PETERSBURG — Yandy Díaz became only the fourth player in Tampa Bay Rays history to record 1,000 hits with the franchise, and Nick Martinez threw six scoreless innings to earn his 10th win as the Rays blanked the Cleveland Guardians 3-0 at Tropicana Field on Saturday night.
Díaz collected the milestone hit in classic fashion — a leadoff single on the ground to right field in the first inning. He joins Carl Crawford (1,480), Evan Longoria (1,471) and Ben Zobrist (1,016) atop the franchise’s all-time hits leaderboard. “Really happy,” Díaz joked through interpreter Kevin Vera. “I can retire now.”
“He’s putting himself in some pretty impressive categories with all the better hitters, better players that have played in this uniform,” manager Kevin Cash said. “He’s one of them.”
Martinez, 35, continued a dominant season that has the Rays leading the American League East and owning the AL’s best record. The right-hander allowed only four hits, all singles, walked nobody and struck out five on 84 pitches in his team-leading 11th quality start. The Rays have gone 16-4 in his starts this year, and Saturday marked the seventh time this season he has worked at least six innings while allowing one or zero runs. His 2.45 ERA trails only Yankees ace Cam Schlittler (2.07) among qualified AL pitchers.
“It’s just part of our identity of attacking the zone and getting ahead and winning that race to two strikes,” Martinez said. “[Force] hitters to swing the bat, and good things will happen.” Martinez leads all qualified pitchers with an average of 14.05 pitches per inning and owns the fourth-lowest ERA for any Rays pitcher in the first 20 starts of a season, behind Shane McClanahan in 2022 (2.07), Blake Snell in his 2018 AL Cy Young Award-winning campaign (2.27) and Charlie Morton in 2019 (2.35), and just ahead of David Price’s 2012 Cy Young season (2.57). It was his second dominant outing against Cleveland this year after throwing seven-plus scoreless innings at Progressive Field on April 28.
“Just a pretty impressive performance once again by him,” Cash said. “He’s had two really big games against Cleveland. … So appreciative of him and what he brings to our club on a daily basis.” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt offered his own praise: “He knows who he is, and he knows how to pitch. It’s really impressive to watch him work.”
The Rays broke through in the fifth inning when Díaz ripped a double to center field off Guardians starter Tanner Bibee. Jonathan Aranda followed with a single to left, and Junior Caminero hammered a 110.8 mph RBI double off the right-field wall. “He’s insanely impressive,” Martinez said of Caminero. “What he can do at the plate and the way he’s been playing all year, man, he’s playing with a lot of joy and having fun with it.”
The victory was the Rays’ seventh shutout of the season and their fifth win in six games, a stretch in which they have outscored opponents 38-11. With the trade deadline nine days away, the AL East leaders will continue their series against Cleveland at Tropicana Field on Sunday.