Tanner Rainey earned his first major league save in Wednesday night’s extra innings affair on the road in Tampa Bay, coming on with a two-run lead in the bottom of the eleventh inning, and walking one and striking out two around a groundout, locking down a 9-7 win for the Washington Nationals. It was a 20-pitch, 11-strike appearance for Rainey, who’d hit a batter but tossed another scoreless inning the night before, on just 12 pitches.
“Rainey threw the ball well yesterday,” manager Davey Martinez said, in discussing his late-inning decision-making after the Nationals split their two-game set with the AL East’s first-place Rays, “.