Brendan McKay took a perfect game into the sixth inning in his major league debut, and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the visiting Texas Rangers 5-2 on Saturday.
The Rays' top pitching prospect, McKay went six innings and gave up one hit and a walk while striking out three.
McKay (1-0) retired the first 16 Rangers he faced before Danny Santana blooped a single to right in the sixth. After a sacrifice bunt, Shin Soo-Choo drew a walk, but McKay struck out Delino DeShields to end the inning.
He left after that, having thrown 81 pitches, 55 for strikes. McKay's high pitch count in the minors this season was 85.
Avisail Garcia, Willy Adames and Travis d'Arnaud homered for the Rays, who had lost three of their previous four games.
Asdrubal Cabrera and Joey Gallo each doubled and scored a run for the Rangers, who had won six straight.
Texas starter Adrian Sampson (6-5) gave up three runs on five hits in six innings of work.
The 23-year-old McKay was the No. 4 overall pick in the 2017 draft. He was 3-0 with a 1.30 ERA in eight games (seven starts) with Double-A Montgomery this season and 3-0 with a 1.08 ERA in five games (four starts) at Triple-A Durham.
The Rays took a 3-0 lead in the second. Yandy Diaz led off with a double and scored on a double by Joey Wendle. Garcia then connected with a 3-1 slider for his 12th homer of the season.
Adames made it 4-0 when he led off the seventh with his 10th home run. Two pitches later, d'Arnaud hit his fifth of the season.
The Rangers averted the shutout in the eighth when Cabrera doubled to break a 0-for-21 skid, went to third on a groundout and scored on a wild pitch.
Gallo doubled leading off the ninth, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on Logan Forsythe's groundout.
--Field Level Media
Texas | Tampa Bay | |
Adrian Sampson | Player | Brendan McKay |
Loss | W/L | Win |
6.0 | IP | 6.0 |
7 | Strikeouts | 3 |
5 | Hits | 1 |
4.50 | ERA | 0.00 |
Texas | Tampa Bay | |
Danny Santana | Player | Travis d'Arnaud |
1 | Hits | 2 |
0 | RBI | 1 |
0 | HR | 1 |
1 | TB | 5 |
.333 | Avg | .667 |