ATLANTA - Victor Mesa Jr. finally put Tampa Bay on the board when the clinching math was already gone.
Pinch-hitting for Jonny DeLuca with one out in the ninth Thursday, Mesa drove a Raisel Iglesias pitch to right-center for his 12th home run, trimming Atlanta's lead to 3-1 in a game the Braves won by that score, CBS Sports and the Associated Press reported. ESPN's box lists him 1-for-1 with the solo shot.
It was Tampa Bay's only run after Martin Perez had thrown seven scoreless innings and Nick Martinez had held Atlanta hitless into the late innings.
The Rays (87-59) entered with a four-game AL East lead and, per the AP, would have clinched no worse than a wild card with a win combined with a Texas loss in Seattle or a Chicago White Sox loss in Pittsburgh. Texas did lose, but Tampa Bay did not win.
Eight quiet innings, then Atlanta's burst
Martinez worked 6 1/3 scoreless with two hits and three strikeouts. Cameron Booser finished the seventh. Kevin Kelly (6-4) then faced five batters in the eighth and retired one. Ozzie Albies tripled as a pinch hitter, Austin Riley singled him home, Mike Yastrzemski doubled, and Ha-Seong Kim singled home two. Five straight hits flipped a scoreless game into a 3-0 Atlanta lead.
Perez had escaped a bases-loaded jam in the first when Chandler Simpson grounded into a double play that started at Matt Olson and ended with Drake Baldwin's throw beating Simpson back to first. After that, Tampa Bay managed little until Mesa's swing. FantasyPros noted Mesa entered with a .247 average and .795 OPS across 190 at-bats; CBS listed him at .242/.306/.474 after the homer.
Why the pinch swing still mattered
Iglesias (32nd save in 35 chances) allowed the homer, walked Simpson, struck out Liam Hicks, and got Jonathan Aranda to ground out. Mesa's contact did not change the result, but it punctured a night when the Rays' lineup had been blanked by Perez and Didier Fuentes (6-2), who threw a scoreless eighth for the win.
DeLuca had two of Tampa Bay's five hits before Mesa replaced him.
