Rays Slip Past Tigers 3-1
ST. PETERSBURG (AP) — Jeremy Hellickson earned his fifth June win and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Detroit Tigers 3-1 Sunday in a game that included an early warning by the umpires.
Hellickson (7-3) allowed one run over six-plus innings. He tied the team record for victories in one month held by Matt Moore, David Price and Scott Kazmir.
Fernando Rodney pitched the ninth for his 17th save.
Miguel Cabrera hit his 25th homer this season for the Tigers, sending a shot into a fish tank beyond the wall.
Both benches were warned by plate umpire Vic Carapazza after Detroit's Rick Porcello (4-6) hit Ben Zobrist with a pitch in the first. Both dugouts stayed calm and nothing further developed.
A day earlier, Cabrera yelled at the Tampa Bay dugout after he struck out in the 10th inning. Rodney had thrown a high-and-tight fastball before fanning the Tigers star.
Zobrist walked to first base after being struck with two outs and no one on base.
Porcello stumbled while in his delivery when facing Zobrist in the third and threw a pitch that landed well in front of the plate. Porcello went six innings, allowing three runs and eight hits.
Before Sunday's game, Detroit manager Jim Leyland said "that's history" when asked about the Cabrera incident. After Saturday's game, however, Leyland said: "Throwing in that area is not acceptable, and somebody pays the price for that throughout baseball. That's just the way baseball is."
Cabrera, booed before each of his at-bats, tied it at 1 with a fourth-inning homer that gave him a 15-game hitting streak. His drive was the second — joining Luis Gonzalez's shot in 2007 — to go into the fish tank just to the right of center field that is home to a group of cownose rays.
James Loney extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a double in the second and scored on a single by Jose Lobaton to put the Rays up 1-0.
Lobaton who drove in another run with a single during a two-run fourth that made it 3-1. Yunel Escobar had a bases-loaded walk in the inning.
Hellickson left with the bases loaded and no outs in the seventh. Reliever Jake McGee bailed out the Rays starter by retiring three straight batters to end the threat.
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