'We don't have to take it off anymore': Rays 4-0 in City Connect unis

ST. PETERSBURG -- The Rays weren’t supposed to wear their City Connect uniforms on Monday night. They debuted the jerseys over the weekend, and according to the plan they announced upon revealing these new threads, they weren’t supposed to break them out again until Saturday.

Then, on the heels of a miserable road trip, the Rays swept the Mets. Their lineup came to life. They looked like a different team in more ways than one. No way they were going to hang them up after that, right?

“If they want to keep winning, we'll wear them as long as they want to,” manager Kevin Cash said before the game, smiling. “Look, the guys have really appreciated the uniforms. They like the look of them, or they like how they look in them -- one of the two.”

The Rays’ winning ways in neon and sun-faded black continued as they pounded out 13 hits and cruised to their season-high fourth straight victory, an 8-2 win over the White Sox in their series opener at Tropicana Field.

“These jerseys are sick. I like them,” said center fielder Jonny DeLuca, who led the way with a career-high four RBIs. “We're undefeated, so hopefully we keep them going.”

The Rays are also undefeated since DeLuca, Sunday’s walk-off hero, came off the injured list to join the team. He sparked the lineup again Monday against an 8-27 White Sox club that surprisingly swept Tampa Bay at Guaranteed Rate Field last weekend.

Coming to the plate with the bases loaded and nobody out in the second inning, DeLuca fouled off a pair of pitches from starter Mike Clevinger to fall behind in the count. Clevinger’s next pitch was a slider well outside the strike zone, but DeLuca poked it through the right side of the infield for an 80.9 mph, two-run single that put the Rays on the board.

“Just one thought in mind is, put the ball in play and get a run across the board,” DeLuca said. “I count it as part of my game, being good with two strikes, and that's what I kind of stress about. So that was pretty much the situation right there.”

DeLuca showed a different side of his game with the Rays up, 5-2, in the fifth. He said he made “a little mechanical adjustment” before the at-bat that locked his swing into the right place. Then, facing lefty reliever Jared Shuster, the 25-year-old hammered a 1-1 changeup at the bottom of the zone a Statcast-projected 401 feet to left-center field with an exit velocity of 105.2 mph.

DeLuca’s third career homer gave him 10 RBIs, the most through a player’s first four games with the Rays in club history and the most through a Rays hitter’s first four games of a season. All that out of the No. 9 spot in the order for someone who had only 24 games of Major League experience heading into the year.

“I believe he's undefeated as a Ray, so that's pretty cool. He's swinging the bat well,” said right fielder Josh Lowe, who doubled and singled in his season debut. “Even when I was with him in Durham and we were rehabbing, he looked great swinging out there, too.”

The Rays pitched well as they matched their largest margin of victory this season; they also won their second game of the season by six runs. Left-hander Tyler Alexander worked into the fifth inning and struck out a season-high seven batters. Reliever Erasmo Ramírez inherited a two-on, nobody-out situation in the fifth, needed only five pitches to get out of it, then breezed through two more hitless innings.

More importantly, it was a productive night across the board for a Tampa Bay lineup that has scored 28 runs over the past four games after managing only 31 during a 2-8 stretch prior to this resurgence.

All nine starters got on base at least once. They walked five times, stole three bases and had only three strikeouts, all after the sixth inning. Catcher Ben Rortvedt, batting .350, drove in a run and scored twice. And Harold Ramírez tweaked his stance at the plate -- standing straighter, hands closer to his chest -- and tied career-high marks with four hits and three runs.

“Maybe it's a sign of a good hitter getting hot,” Cash said.

The Rays were bound to turn it around at some point after a slow start, but could it be the power of the City Connect jerseys and the “SkyRay” cap? Well, consider what Harold Ramírez said late Monday night, still wearing his jersey as he answered that very question.

“We don't have to take it off anymore,” Ramírez said. “The rest of the season, we're gonna use it.”