SportsFullCircle

With a 7-2 victory of the Minnesota Twins, the Tampa Bay Rays finally said hello to the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. Scott Kazmir pitched six scoreless innings of baseball on Saturday to help guarantee the current AL East leaders at least a Wild-Card spot in the playoffs.

Carlos Pena hit a two-run double in the game while Cliff Floyd and Fernando Perez went deep for the Rays. Their lead in the AL East is now at 2.5 games over the Red Sox, who lost to the Blue Jays by a score of 6 to 3.

The 36,048 who were at Tropicana Field to witness history stood for the whole 9th inning chanting “Let’s go Rays!” while clanging their cowbells. Minnesota delayed the celebration by scoring twice in that inning, but when Evan Longoria caught Joe Mauer’s foul ball for the final out of the game, the party got started.

As for the Twins, they have lost six of their last seven games. They began the day 2.5 games behind the Chicago White Sox for the AL Central lead and 7.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox for the AL Wild Card lead.