{"id":877912,"date":"2026-06-19T09:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T09:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/877912\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T09:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T09:20:16","slug":"rays-host-the-nationals-to-start-3-game-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/877912\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays host the Nationals to start 3-game series"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington Nationals (39-36, third in the NL East) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (41-30, second in the AL East)<\/p>\n<p>St. Petersburg, Florida; Friday, 7:10 p.m. EDT<\/p>\n<p>PITCHING PROBABLES: Nationals: Cade Cavalli (4-4, 3.98 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, 81 strikeouts); Rays: Griffin Jax (1-5, 3.68 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 41 strikeouts)<\/p>\n<p>LINE: Rays -132, Nationals +108; over\/under is 8 runs<\/p>\n<p>BOTTOM LINE: The Tampa Bay Rays begin a three-game series at home against the Washington Nationals on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay is 41-30 overall and 24-9 in home games. The Rays have a 29-10 record in games when they record eight or more hits.<\/p>\n<p>Washington has gone 23-14 on the road and 39-36 overall. The Nationals rank third in the NL with 96 total home runs, averaging 1.3 per game.<\/p>\n<p>Friday\u2019s game is the first meeting between these teams this season.<\/p>\n<p>TOP PERFORMERS: Junior Caminero leads the Rays with 15 home runs while slugging .485. Jonathan Aranda is 11 for 40 with a double and four RBIs over the past 10 games.<\/p>\n<p>James Wood has 17 doubles and 20 home runs for the Nationals. Nasim Nunez is 13 for 33 with a double, two triples and seven RBIs over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n<p>LAST 10 GAMES: Rays: 4-6, .249 batting average, 3.86 ERA, outscored by five runs<\/p>\n<p>Nationals: 6-4, .257 batting average, 5.01 ERA, outscored opponents by seven runs<\/p>\n<p>INJURIES: Rays: Jon Heasley: 60-Day IL (elbow), Michael Grove: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Jesse Scholtens: 15-Day IL (wrist), Manuel Rodriguez: 60-Day IL (elbow), Jonny Deluca: 10-Day IL (hamstring), Steven Wilson: 60-Day IL (back), Gavin Lux: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Jake Fraley: 10-Day IL (groin), Ryan Pepiot: 60-Day IL (hip), Edwin Uceta: 60-Day IL (shoulder)<\/p>\n<p>Nationals: Max Kranick: 60-Day IL (elbow), Jake Irvin: 15-Day IL (shoulder), Trevor Williams: 60-Day IL (elbow), Ken Waldichuk: 60-Day IL (forearm), Josiah Gray: 60-Day IL (elbow), DJ Herz: 60-Day IL (elbow)<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dataskrive.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Data Skrive<\/a> and data from <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportradar.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Sportradar<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington Nationals (39-36, third in the NL East) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (41-30, second in the AL East)&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":535580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[2733,591,45282,122735,10625,45008,1818,89719,6598,29772,27054,356772,34539,356769,246629,38820,213487,356770,62485,27039,1266,1822,356771,62912,62,126148,1289,277744,67,132,68,1291],"class_list":["post-877912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-athlete-injuries","tag-baseball","tag-cade-cavalli","tag-edwin-uceta","tag-gavin-lux","tag-griffin-jax","tag-illinois","tag-jake-fraley","tag-jake-irvin","tag-james-wood","tag-jesse-scholtens","tag-jon-heasley","tag-jonathan-aranda","tag-jonny-deluca","tag-josiah-gray","tag-junior-caminero","tag-ken-waldichuk","tag-manuel-rodriguez","tag-max-kranick","tag-michael-grove","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-baseball","tag-nasim-nunez","tag-ryan-pepiot","tag-sports","tag-steven-wilson","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-trevor-williams","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-washington-nationals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116776038116616075","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}