Tampa Bay Rays at Miami Marlins

For Drew Rasmussen and the Rays, the issue lately has been falling behind. Looking back at a rare rough outing as he stood in the Rays’ dugout at Tropicana Field on Wednesday morning, Rasmussen put it plainly: He hasn’t been throwing enough first-pitch strikes lately, at least not enough to meet his high standard. “If we get that sorted out,” Rasmussen said then, “I think we’ll be in a good spot again.” Manager Kevin Cash offered a similar diagnosis when looking at the Rays’ recent skid, when they lost eight of their past 10 games. They were playing from behind too often, forced to dig out of early holes by tough starts and a late-starting lineup. The Tigers scored first in all three games as they swept the Rays at the Trop, and Tampa Bay had scored first only four times in the past 10 games overall. “Let’s see if we can get some early runs,” Cash told reporters Friday afternoon at loanDepot park in Miami. “See if we can kind of repay the favor with batting first and get our offense going for our pitchers.” Everything went according to plan in Friday night’s series opener against the Marlins. No longer falling behind, Rasmussen and the Rays came out ahead with a 6-0 victory, improving their record to an American League-leading 37-23. Rasmussen relentlessly attacked the strike zone against Miami’s lineup, firing first-pitch strikes to 17 of the 22 batters he faced. With that taken care of, Rasmussen had one of the best starts of his career, striking out nine batters while allowing just one hit over seven incredible innings. It should come as no surprise that the rock-steady Rasmussen returned to form after his uncharacteristic four-inning, five-run outing against the Angels last Saturday. But what he did against the Marlins was impressive even compared to his usual top-of-the-rotation performance. Rasmussen’s determination and domination was evident from the start, as he breezed through a perfect first inning on only six pitches. He allowed a one-out single to Javier Sanoja in the second inning and nothing else the rest of the night, retiring the final 17 hitters he faced in order. Rasmussen’s nine strikeouts were tied for the second most in his career -- and his most in any outing since a career-high 10-strikeout outing against the Yankees on Sept. 9, 2022. The punchouts came in a number of different ways, as he racked up three with his cutter, three with his changeup, two on his two-seamer and one on his four-seam fastball. Friday was also only the sevent