None of that stopped the Rays from arriving as heavy road favorites, and the market leaned hard into more scoring given how both offenses had performed the previous two nights in Sacramento.
Tampa Bay wasted no time turning this into another laugher. A four-run third inning blew it open, and the Rays tacked on across the board en route to 15 hits and an 8-4 final. Rasmussen didn't need his best stuff — Oakland got to him for a couple of runs — but the offense buried the Athletics again, the same formula that produced 10 and 12 runs in the two nights before.
That's 5 straight wins for Tampa Bay and a third straight lopsided result against an Oakland club that's now lost 2 in a row and sitting at 47-73, buried in last place. The Rays have simply had their number all series, piling up 30-plus combined runs across the set while the A's pitching staff — already stretched by injuries — had no answer.
For Oakland, the silver lining is thin: Perkins gets another data point in a rookie season that's mostly been an adjustment period, and at least the last-place club heads into the next series without another loss on the ledger to dwell on. For the Rays, it's more of the same — a deep, healthy-enough lineup mashing a shorthanded opponent, and Rasmussen banking another quality-ish start to keep his ERA near the top of the American League.