{"id":678233,"date":"2026-04-18T08:39:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T08:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/678233\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T08:39:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T08:39:56","slug":"pirates-meet-the-rays-with-1-0-series-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/678233\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates meet the Rays with 1-0 series lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> (11-8, first in the AL East) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> (12-8, second in the NL Central)<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh; Saturday, 4:05 p.m. EDT<\/p>\n

PITCHING PROBABLES: Rays: Drew Rasmussen<\/a> (1-0, 1.13 ERA, 0.50 WHIP, 17 strikeouts); Pirates: Paul Skenes<\/a> (3-1, 4.00 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 18 strikeouts)<\/p>\n

LINE: Pirates -167, Rays +141; over\/under is 7 runs<\/p>\n

BOTTOM LINE: The Pittsburgh Pirates take a 1-0 lead into the latest game of the series against the Tampa Bay Rays.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh has a 7-4 record at home and a 12-8 record overall. The Pirates have the third-best team ERA in MLB<\/a> play at 3.16.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay has a 7-6 record in road games and an 11-8 record overall. The Rays are 4-1 in games when they hit at least two home runs.<\/p>\n

The teams play Saturday for the second time this season.<\/p>\n

TOP PERFORMERS: Oneil Cruz<\/a> has four doubles and six home runs for the Pirates. Brandon Lowe<\/a> is 12 for 40 with two doubles and four home runs over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

Yandy Diaz<\/a> has three doubles, a triple, three home runs and 16 RBIs for the Rays. Junior Caminero<\/a> is 9 for 38 with a double, three home runs and six RBIs over the past 10 games.<\/p>\n

LAST 10 GAMES: Pirates: 6-4, .272 batting average, 2.83 ERA, outscored opponents by 17 runs<\/p>\n

Rays: 7-3, .254 batting average, 4.20 ERA, outscored opponents by one run<\/p>\n

INJURIES: Pirates: Jared Triolo: 10-Day IL (knee), Jared Jones<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow)<\/p>\n

Rays: Joe Boyle<\/a>: 15-Day IL (elbow), Gavin Lux: 10-Day IL (shoulder), Garrett Cleavinger: 15-Day IL (calf), Michael Grove<\/a>: 15-Day IL (shoulder), Ryan Pepiot<\/a>: 60-Day IL (hip), Steven Wilson<\/a>: 60-Day IL (back), Edwin Uceta<\/a>: 15-Day IL (shoulder), Manuel Rodriguez<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow)<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Rays (11-8, first in the AL East) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (12-8, second in the NL Central)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,1751,1999,6925,75686,5627,12626,4682,19,1095,7908,4,1330,877,64,297,1956,4274,2550,68,2551,2549,3348],"class_list":{"0":"post-678233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brandon-lowe","10":"tag-drew-rasmussen","11":"tag-edwin-uceta","12":"tag-event_preview","13":"tag-jared-jones","14":"tag-joe-boyle","15":"tag-junior-caminero","16":"tag-major-league-baseball","17":"tag-manuel-rodriguez","18":"tag-michael-grove","19":"tag-mlb","20":"tag-oneil-cruz","21":"tag-paul-skenes","22":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","23":"tag-rays","24":"tag-ryan-pepiot","25":"tag-steven-wilson","26":"tag-tampa-bay","27":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","28":"tag-tampabay","29":"tag-tampabayrays","30":"tag-yandy-diaz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116424816409336471","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}