There’s been two previous sweeps in George Steinbrenner Field as a major league park. Both went against the Rays. Finally, it’s the Rays side of things that get into the fun of busting out the brooms. Taking the full series vs the Jays securing 5 wins in a row and back-to-back strong series for a Rays team that has been searching for some home cooking.

Today, it was a whole damn buffet.

Everything that could go right for the Rays was rocking and rolling. Let’s start off with the big crooked touchdown and couple of field goals number.

The Bats

What a gorgeous sunday at the park for Rays hitters. Right off the jump, Brandon Lowe got the Rays on the board with another bomb, again following a Josh Lowe base knock. The return of Josh Lowe has been huge for this lineup, and a healthy, happy Brandon Lowe gets the engine roaring.

But the Lowes were the only ones contributing. Every Rays hitter got a hit, 5 extra base hits and a total of 15 hits and 4 walks, along with 3 SB.

You had Aranda extend his team leading RBI total to 25.

Chandler Simpson extended his hitting streak to 10 games.

Curtis Mead continued his torrid little run with another HR.

The Lowe’s combined for 5 hits .

Even Ben Rortvedt had 3 RBIs!

Maybe even cooler? 8 out of the 10 Rays hitters used (Morel PR at one point) scored a run. Total team effort up and down the lineup.

The Gloves

To be perfectly honest, there wasn’t a ton of opportunities to make many web gems with the way Pepiot was rolling (save that thought), but I wanted to make sure to highlight a couple of plays in the field that cut out any potential glimmer of hope for the Blue Jays.

First you had Pepiot erasing one of the few baserunners he allowed with a smooth pickoff (and snap tag for Aranda):

And then you had BLowe flashing the glove Superman’ing out for a robbery into the outfield grass:

The Arms

Ryan Pepiot was spectacular, doing what top of the rotation arms are supposed to do with a chance to finish off a sweep: lock it down.

7 IP just 3 H 1 BB 5 Ks and a whole lot of nothing in the runs department, over 91 pitches.

Once again, we saw the plan of attack vs this Jays club: keep hammering fastballs. After Baz had once again his highest fastball percentage vs the Jays, Pepiot ran his FB up there 57% of the time, a new season high.

The plan worked, as the Jays never reached as far as 2nd base the entire afternoon.

With the win, the Rays have moved back up to .500 and into 2nd place in the AL East. It’s not been an ideal start to the season, but the AL at large has been quite a strange conglomeration of teams around the same level. The Rays have somehow been able to do that while having a truly abysmal start at home. These past two series have been water in the desert to give some good vibes at the Stein.