CHICAGO — The Rays looked like they had done enough to win Saturday’s game.
They rallied from an early three-run deficit with — check your bingo cards — a triple by rookie slugger Bob Seymour leading to a run, and Jake Mangum delivering a key pinch hit.
After the Cubs went back ahead, Junior Caminero hit a tying home run in the eighth, the 43rd of his spectacular season.
Then Nick Fortes delivered a bigger blow, a 421-foot shot in the ninth that put the Rays ahead for the first time.
But Pete Fairbanks still had to get the final three outs, which he eventually — after back-to-back walks, a stolen base, a wild pitch, a heads-up play by Caminero and Fortes, and two strikeouts — did in the much needed 5-4 win.
The Rays had lost three straight and six of their last seven to just about fall out of the American League playoff race. They started the day 7 ½ games behind the Mariners and Astros, who were tied for the third wild-card spot (as well as the AL West lead).
But a dramatic win that didn’t do much more than improve the Rays to 73-75 is still a dramatic win.
“That’s the benefit of having a good group of guys, and we’ve had that all year long,” manager Kevin Cash said. “Our record is not what we want it to be, but it also doesn’t take away from the character of the group. And they really showed their character.”
The ninth didn’t start well for Fairbanks when he walked Dansby Swanson (Rays starter Drew Rasmussen joked that he appreciated the tension-builder) and let him steal second. Fairbanks then walked Willi Castro on a wild pitch, sending Swanson to third and bringing Matt Shaw to the plate.
Pitching coach Kyle Snyder went to the mound. Fairbanks tried to reset. A Wrigley Field crowd of 39,712 was in full roar.
“I took some breaths,” Fairbanks said. “I reminded myself that the only thing I can do is control what I can control, and that’s throwing the ball over the plate and attacking the zone.
“Once you got [Shaw] with the wildly aggressive swings there, you figure you can either hopefully get him with something breaking on the ground or get him out of the zone.”
Fairbanks got a ground ball to third like he wanted. Caminero, who said he noticed Cubs manager Craig Counsell signaling for Shaw to swing away, was well positioned to field it and throw home. As Swanson headed back to third, Fortes made an athletic play to run him down, a strap snapping on his left shin guard.
“The ball was hit pretty sharply at Cami, and I saw Swanson coming in,” Fortes said. “As soon as Cami threw the ball, I could kind of tell that [Swanson] was about to stop and start going [back to third]. So I kind of got a head start on the ball coming in to me. I just caught it kind of on the run and just committed to going and tagging him.”
Fairbanks appreciated the effort.
“Junior made a great play,” he said. “Forty broke his shin guards. I took a couple breaths and then started to execute.”
That he did, striking out Michael Busch with the cutter he just started throwing on a 2-2 pitch and then Ian Happ with another to log his 26th save.
“I was impressed by Pete to be able to kind of rein it in,” Cash said. “It was a struggle early on, but he made some huge pitches to the top of their lineup to put them down with the strikeouts.
“Cami made a tremendous play there to kid of reset him. But Pete’s done it a lot. I really am impressed the way he was able to navigate through that and not let it derail.”
Rasmussen, making his career-high 29th start, said he felt he pitched better than the three runs he allowed indicated. Cash agreed and took the blame for a decision to flip a 3-0 count into an intentional walk of Moises Ballesteros with two outs in the fourth, as Swanson followed with a two-run double.
“I thought [Rasmussen] was outstanding. I feel bad about the intentional walk and how that went, and that’s on me,” Cash said. “Drew threw the ball really, really well, and it makes me sick that those runs came up the way they did off Swanson’s bat.”
Caminero turned a 98-mph Porter Hodge fastball into a 423-foot line-drive home run to center to move within three of tying the single-season Rays record of 46 set by Carlos Pena in 2007.
Caminero also notched his 107th RBI, matching Aubrey Huff’s 2003 total for fourth most by a Ray. Pena holds that record, too, with 121 in 2007.
“Cami’s a special player, and there’s no denying it,” Cash said. “He can hit the ball to all fields off of anybody and off of any pitch.”
Caminero, via team interpreter Eddie Rodriguez, said Cash told him before his previous at-bat, with two on and no outs in the sixth, “Just take a deep breath and just try to go do your thing.”
Caminero grounded out.
He made up for it in the eighth.
“That’s what I did,” he said.
