ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. � The Rays seemed to already do the hard part in the fourth inning Tuesday, their offense snapping back to life after 12 scoreless frames over two days with a six-run barrage, on three two-run homers, to erase a hefty Blue Jays lead.
But there was still the matter of winning the game, which they did with some degree of difficulty, and considerable drama, 7-6 in 10 innings.
Kevin Kiermaier led off the 10th with a base hit to right that he all-out hustled into a double, and a walk and a Willy Adames bunt the Jays couldn't make a play on later, they had the bases loaded.
Pinch-hitter Tommy Pham took a called third strike from lefty Buddy Boshers, then Travis d'Arnaud went down swinging. With Austin Meadows, their last chance, in a 2-2 count they won it on wild pitch.
It was the Rays' third walkoff win of the season, and just their second win in nine extra-inning games at home.
And that was all after navigating a nerve wracking ninth before a Tropicana Field gathering of 9,434.
First, they had to escape a serious threat as the Jays had two on and one out, with Emilio Pagan striking out sizzling rookie Bo Bichette, the Lakewood High product looking to make his homecoming even more happy, and then Cavan Biggio.
Then they failed in a prime chance to win in regulation.
Meadows reached second with one out on an infield single and accompanying errant throw by Vlad Guerrero Jr. But Mike Brosseau flied out and after lefty Eric Sogard was intentionally walk, Avisail Garcia battled through a nine-pitch at-bat against Jason Adam, including four straight two-strike fouls, before striking out.
With the win, the Rays improved to 66-49 and continued their hold on the second AL wild-card spot, staying one-half game ahead of Oakland, and moving to within 1 { games of top-card holding Cleveland.
They also avoided the difficult reality in what is a supposedly soft stretch of 21 game against teams with losing records that they would have been playing Wednesday to avoid a sweep by the rebuilding Jays.
A quick change in what was a dazzling open by Andrew Kittredge with five consecutive strikeouts put the Rays down 3-0 in the second, and with a couple more mistakes on the mound by Ryan Yarbrough and some sloppy infield defense the deficit grew to 6-0 in the fourth.
And then the Rays struck back, hitting three two-run homers in their half of the inning.
Garcia had the first one, following Sogard's leadoff single, a 382-foot shot to left, his 15th of the season
Willy Adames was next, following Duffy's one-out single, a 375-foot shot to left, the 15th of his season also.
And then Meadows, following d'Arnaud's two-out single, a massive 447 foot blast, with an exit velocity of 109.8 mph per Statcast, to right, his team-leading 19th.
Ryan Yarbrough gave the Rays pretty much the pitching performance they needed Tuesday.
With Yonny Chirinos joining starters Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell on the sideline at least into September due to injuries, the Rays need more from the healthy pitchers they have left.
And one they will lean heavily on is Ryan Yarbrough.
"It could put more pressure � I don't want to put more pressure on somebody because of an injury," manager Kevin Cash said before the game. "But somebody's got to pitch, and he seems like a very likely candidate to get a lot of pitches."
Though Yarbrough pitched behind Kittredge on Tuesday, he may graduate to making traditional starts.
"There's a good chance next time we might not have that availability (to use an opener," Cash said. "Going on the road (and to NL rules San Diego next week) with Brendan (McKay) or Jalen (Beeks), if we want to start an opener in front of one of those guys to have that flexibility, I would imagine knowing Charlie (Morton) had been the only mainstay starter, we probably will not be able to have an opener in front of everybody, meaning Yarbs."
And to this point, they like what they've seen from the lefty.
"The nice thing with Yarbs is that he's basically 100 pitch ready," Cash said. "He's done a really good job from where he started in the first month of the year to get where he is and the type of performances he's given us.
"It's a good feeling when he's on the mound. He competes really well. He does a good job limiting damage."
Kittredge, taking his fourth turn as the opener, got the Rays off to a strong start � to a certain point. Kittredge struck out the first five Jays � two shy of the AL record to start a game � and all swinging. But then he allowed a two-out single in the second to Randal Grichuk, and then he went from ahead 0-2 to walking Teoscar Hernandez, and then he gave up a three-run homer to Brandon Drury.
