Rays Received Truly Dominant Pitching Performances To Beat Giants

Pitching was the strength of the Tampa Bay Rays in their series with the San Francisco Giants.

May 2, 2026; St. Petersburg, Florida, USA; Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Garrett Cleavinger (60) serves a pitch during the eighth inning against San Francisco Giants at Tropicana Field. | Pablo Robles-Imagn Images

The Tampa Bay Rays have consistently found ways to win games during the 2026 MLB regular season, regardless of the obstacles that were ahead of them.

In some matchups, it has been the offense picking up the pitching staff or vice versa. In others, the defense has shone to steal some wins. This is a well-rounded team that can beat opponents in a number of different ways.

Against the San Francisco Giants, it was the pitching staff that did the heavy lifting en route to a sweep. The Rays are riding a three-game winning streak and own a record of 21-12, and their stable of arms should be given a ton of credit for that.

Tampa Bay bounced back from their six-game winning streak being snapped in the finale against the Cleveland Guardians with a 3-0 victory in the opener against the Giants. In that matchup, it was Shane McClanahan leading the way.

Rays pitching staff dominates Giants in weekend sweep

May 1, 2026; St. Petersburg, Florida, USA; Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Shane McClanahan (18) throws a pitch during the first inning against San Francisco Giants at Tropicana Field. | Pablo Robles-Imagn Images

He is looking more and more like his former All-Star self with each passing start. San Francisco’s offense had no answer for him through six shutout innings in which he surrendered only five hits, issued zero walks and struck out five.

Ian Seymour, Cole Sulser and Bryan Baker each worked one inning to complete the shutout. Only one hit was allowed between that trio, to go along with two strikeouts and zero walks.

In Game 2, the Rays were victorious by a score of 5-1. This time around, Kevin Cash deployed his new opener, Griffin Jax, with Jesse Scholens in a bulk inning role behind him.

It is the second time that the duo has worked in tandem, and the second time Tampa Bay has come away with a win. Jax pitched 2.2 shutout innings, looking comfortable in a starting role after a rocky start to the campaign.

Scholtens piggybacked off that with 3.0 innings of work, allowing a single run on a Rafael Devers RBI double in the top of the sixth inning.

Broom closet's getting kinda full 🧹 pic.twitter.com/b806cJHXgX

— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) May 3, 2026

The Rays welcomed back Garrett Cleavinger to the bullpen in that game. He pitched a clean eighth inning after Kevin Kelly recorded 1.1 shutout frames. Closing things out was their newest reliever, Casey Legumina, who was acquired in a trade from the Seattle Mariners.

In the series finale, Tampa Bay came away with a thrilling 2-1 victory in 10 innings. Steven Matz didn’t factor into the decision, but he certainly pitched well enough to earn a win, throwing six innings and allowing only four hits and two walks with one run scored against him.

Hunter Bigge went two innings in relief of Matz, followed by one inning by Baker and one by Seymour to get the win.

All in all, the Rays' pitching staff threw 28 innings against the Giants and allowed only two runs for a minuscule 0.64 ERA and 0.79 WHIP. The staff is trusting the defense behind them, and they are consistently making plays, shutting down San Francisco’s offense despite a K/9 of 6.4.