On Tuesday night, Tampa Bay Rays’ first baseman Isaac Paredes had a career-best performance against American League East rivals New York Yankees with three home runs. Paredes helped lead the Rays to a 5-4 victory over the Yankees.
Here is how the game went down and the history that was made.
Detroit Days
Prior to coming to Tampa, Paredes started his career with two short seasons with the Detroit Tigers.
In those two seasons, he played a combined 57 games where in 172 at-bats he put up a .215 batting average with only two home runs and 11 RBI.
The bulk of his success came on one swing in his fourth major league game on August 21, 2020, when he hit a grand slam.
Three in Tampa
Coming into Tuesday night’s game, Paredes played in 30 games where he had five homers and 12 RBI along with a .181 batting average.
Paredes was put in the second spot of the batting order where he aimed to get the scoring started early.
In the bottom of the 1st, Paredes clobbered a 1-1 pitch into the left-field seats for a solo home run. This put the Rays up 1-0.
His spot in the order came up second in the bottom of the 3rd. Once again, with one out and nobody on he smacked a 2-2 pitch into left field for his second solo homer of the game. At this point, the game was tied at two so this big hit gave the Rays a 3-2 lead.
In the bottom of the 5th, Paredes stepped to the plate with one out and a runner on first. This time he did not wait around. He walloped the first pitch he saw into the left-field seats for his third homer of the game. This pushed the lead to 5-2.
He wrapped up his day at the plate in the 7th by being hit by a pitch.
History
As noted earlier, this was a career game for Paredes.
It was the second career multi-homer game of his career, but the first three-homer game. This was his first game reaching base four times in his career. Additionally, three hits tied a career-high which he did three times prior. It also tied his career-high in RBI in a game with four which he did on August 21, 2020.
The last time the Rays had a player record three homers in a game was Brandon Lowe on October 2, 2021, against the Yankees in New York.
The Tampa Bay Rays have had an extremely tough time scoring runs lately and getting this kind of contribution in a big game means a ton to their confidence. Paredes helped snap a four-game losing streak against the Yankees. If Paredes and the rest of the offense can gain some confidence this team can be extremely tough to beat.
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