Osleivis Basabe blasted a grand slam to finish a nine-run eighth inning for the AL wild card-leading Tampa Bay Rays, who defeated the Colorado Rockies 12-4 on Tuesday night.
Basabe is stepping in at shortstop for Wander Franco, who is on the MLB disabled list while authorities in the Dominican Republic investigate him for an alleged relationship with a child.
After the Rays loaded the bases with no outs in the eighth inning against Brent Suter (4-1), pinch-hitter Christian Bethancourt delivered an RBI single to tie the game before Yandy Daz scored on a base hit. Daz finished 3 for 5 in his fifth consecutive multi-hit game, raising his AL-leading average to.328.
Randy Arozarena added a two-run single off Daniel Bard that went off left fielder Nolan Jones’ glove, and Isaac Paredes drove in a run with a double. Bard then hit Jose Siri with a pitch to load the bases and bring up Basabe, who took him deep to left field to put the Rays ahead by eight.
Andrew Kittredge (1-0) worked a scoreless eighth to get his win since returning from Tommy John surgery this month.
National League-worst Colorado has lost nine of 12.
Díaz put the Rays up 3-2 on his run-scoring single off Ty Blach in the fourth.
Elias Díaz ended Zack Littell’s night with a game-tying sixth-inning RBI single. Colorado then went ahead 4-3 when Brendan Rodgers scored from third when reliever Colin Poche threw a wild pitch on his first pitch.
Jones got his first career triple on an opposite-field 170-foot flare down the left-field line and scored on Jurickson Profar’s sacrifice fly before Michael Toglia hit a solo homer as the Rockies took a 2-1 lead in the second.
Blach allowed three runs and seven hits over four-plus innings. Littell gave up four runs and seven hits in 5 1/3 innings.
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The announced attendance was 10,235. Tampa Bay began the day with the fourth-lowest home attendance average in the majors, at 18,191.