Luke Raley leads the way as Rays beat Giants, win another series

SAN FRANCISCO — In what has been a difficult and eventful week so far, the Rays welcomed some reasons to smile Wednesday.

Brandon Lowe made history with his 100th career home run, the fastest primary second baseman in major-league history to reach the milestone. Josh Lowe delivered on a pre-game prediction to assistant hitting coach Dan DeMent that he’d go deep. Aaron Civale earned his first Rays win with his best, and most comfortable, outing since the July 31 trade from Cleveland, working six shutout innings. Reliever Colin Poche got them out of a late jam.

But Luke Raley provided the biggest reason with a remarkable, physics-challenging, description-defying, pinch-hit, inside-the-park home run in their 6-1 win over the Giants.

The ball carried 425 feet, hit the high brick wall in right-centerfield at Oracle Park, then bounced and rolled on the top of the 7-foot high centerfield fence in front of the Rays bullpen and caromed toward leftfield, eluding the scrambling Giants defenders as Raley raced around the bases.

“That was probably one of the coolest homers I think I’ve seen,” Brandon Lowe said. “To watch it roll along the top of the wall, like you see the squirrels and cats and all that kind of stuff run against the top of the wall, that ball just seemed like it never wanted to come down. ... I would love to know Statcast on how long the ball stayed on the wall because it felt like it was up there forever.”

Or, as manager Kevin Cash said with a different furry reference: “It looked like a rat running across the top of the fence there.”

The Giants were equally stunned.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” rightfielder Michael Conforto said. “I knew it was going to be close to the yellow line (that runs vertically to designate what is a homer). Once it didn’t hit that, I figured it would either ricochet and go into the bullpen or just shoot over to (centerfielder Wade Meckler). It just hopped along the wall and stayed in play. It’s crazy.”

There even was some drama, as Poche said he had to yell at reliever Jason Adam to not grab the ball, as he seemed to be doing. Adam insisted he knew better and just wanted a better view. “I ran up to the fence to watch it. That was sick. It was awesome. It just rolled right in front of our faces. I think it hit (the top of the wall) at least twice.”

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And as for Raley’s take, as he pinch-hit for Jose Siri?

“I knew I hit it well, to the deep part of the park,” he said. “So I got out of box quick and I saw it hit the wall and kind of bounce off the wall and get past the centerfielder. I knew I had a chance, so I put my head down and just got going. ... . It’s kind of crazy. I’m sure that doesn’t happen very often.”

Raley is lauded by teammates for his constant hustle, and teased for his admittedly awkward style of running, so there was plenty of reaction when he got back to the dugout. Cash was still teasing him in the clubhouse about his colorful Hawaiian style shirt.

“I think it’s exactly what everyone expected to see today was me hitting an inside-the-park home run and then go out to centerfield (for the first time as a big-leaguer),” Raley said.

There were plenty of historical notations involved. It was the first pinch-hit, inside-the-park homer in Rays history, and their 23rd inside-the-parker overall (most in the majors since they joined in 1998). It was the 11th in regular-season play in quirky Oracle Park’s 24 seasons, fourth by an opponent. And it would have been an out-of-the-park homer in every other big-league stadium.

“If it was going to happen to anybody I felt like Luke was the only person that was ever going to happen to,” Brandon Lowe said. “Thankfully the kid’s always hustling, he’s always running hard out of the box. So he got the homer he deserved.”

Brandon Lowe also had researchers scrambling, with mlb.com deeming him the quickest among “primary” second basemen to reach 100 homers based on games played (477). He also became the seventh player to hit 100 homers for the Rays.

“It’s a pretty cool accomplishment,” he said.

The Rays improved to 73-50 overall, and 11-7 in their past 18 games, with wins in five of their past six series. They also moved within two games of the American League East-leading Orioles, who lost 5-2 to the Padres later in the night.

And they went into Thursday’s off-day, before a weekend series in Anaheim, on a good note in a week in which they made an agreement with shortstop Wander Franco to go on the restricted list, placed outfielder Manuel Margot (elbow) and reliever Kevin Kelly (ankle) on the injured list, and got word that top starter Shane McClanahan would have Tommy John surgery and be out until 2025.

“We’re focused on baseball, and that’s it,” Raley said. “Whatever happens other ways, we’re not worried about it. We’re going to come out here and compete every day.”

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