ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — For years, the scariest thing about a series at Tropicana Field was the ghost stories from the allegedly haunted hotel where most visiting teams stayed.
Times have changed. Most teams don’t even stay there anymore.
Instead, Tropicana Field has become a difficult place to play – even if it is still easy to get tickets. The Tampa Bay Rays’ best record in baseball has been largely built indoors, where they had a 25-5 record going into Saturday’s game and the team’s persistent success in recent years has swelled attendance to an average of just over 17,000 fans a game this season. Four teams draw fewer and the Rays don’t even have to count the actual rays in the ‘Touch Tank’ to pad the total.
It was touch and go on the field for the Dodgers on Saturday. But Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman drove in the tying and go-ahead runs as the Dodgers reclaimed a lost lead in the seventh inning and hung on for a 6-5 victory.
“It’s tough, it’s tough,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the challenge of playing the Rays at home. “It was tough in one sense years ago when no one was showing up and it was just kind of a down environment. But now, they pack it out for this ballpark and there’s a lot of energy. You can see those guys feed off of it. It’s no wonder that they play really well at home.”
With Clayton Kershaw holding the Rays scoreless for the first three innings, the Dodgers built a 3-0 lead.
Max Muncy’s average had sunk below .200. He did homer in St. Louis in the first game of this sprawling 10-game road trip, but was 2 for 27 before hitting another solo home run leading off the second inning against Rays starter Tyler Glasnow.
Two innings later, Muncy followed J.D. Martinez’s double with one of his own and eventually scored on a wild pitch to build that 3-0 lead.
Kershaw, the National League’s Pitcher of the Month in April who has had a trying time in May, then began to struggle.
A leadoff walk…
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