St. Petersburg, FL – David Price extended Tampa Bay's remarkable run of starting pitching with a complete-game effort that carried the resurgent Rays to a 3-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox at Tropicana Field.
After striking out 10 over seven scoreless innings in his return from the disabled list Tuesday in Houston, Price (3-4) scattered eight hits and walked none in an economical 98-pitch effort that enabled the Rays to notch their first three-game sweep of the White Sox since Aug. 1-3, 2008. The reigning AL Cy Young Award recipient's only blemish came when Josh Phegley hit his first career major league homer in the top of the sixth.
"I felt good," Price said afterward. "I felt better five days ago. My fastball location was still there. If I can have command of that pitch, I feel like I can be successful at this level."
Price followed up Matt Moore's 6 1/3 scoreless innings in Saturday's 3-0 triumph over Chicago, which managed just one run through seven frames against Jeremy Hellickson in Friday's opener of the set.
Sean Rodriguez contributed an RBI single and Luke Scott went 2-for-3 with a run scored for Tampa Bay, which has now won four in a row and eight of its last nine overall.
John Danks (2-6) worked seven innings in Chicago's ninth defeat in 11 outings, permitting all three runs on just five hits while striking out five.
"I feel good about getting us deep in the game and keeping us in the ballgame, but I simply got outpitched by David," said Danks.
The White Sox got to Price for a pair of singles in three of the first four innings, but the Tampa ace was able to avert damage on each occasion while protecting a 1-0 lead he was given early on.
Desmond Jennings doubled off Danks' third pitch of the day and quickly moved to third on a Rodriguez sacrifice before crossing the plate on Ben Zobrist's flyout to center.
"Getting that one run in the first makes my job a lot easier to just go out there and make pitches," said Price. "Even though it's just one run, you have the lead."
Danks settled in thereafter to keep it a one-run margin until the fifth, when the Rays had three straight batters reach base with two out. Yunel Escobar singled in front of a walk to Jennings to bring up Rodriguez, whose grounder to third got under a diving Brent Morel to knock in the Rays' second run.
Phegley cut the margin to one with a two-out homer to left in the sixth, but Price retired nine of the final 10 batters he faced to end any hopes of a Chicago comeback.
The Rays got some insurance when Scott legged out a triple to right to begin the bottom of the seventh and came around on a Jose Molina sacrifice fly.
Game Notes
Rays first baseman James Loney had a career-best 16-game hitting streak snapped after going 0-for-3 ... Price picked up his first win at Tropicana Field since July 19 of last season. He had gone eight straight home starts without one and entered the matchup 0-3 with a 5.83 ERA in five 2013 assignments at the Trop ... Chicago's Gordon Beckham finished 2-for-4 and is batting .500 (11-for-22) in six July games ... Danks has lost all five of his road starts this season and has posted a 6.43 ERA in those games.
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