Rays 8, Athletics 4: Hicks Caps a 9-0 West Coast Trip

August 12, 2026 - West Sacramento - Jack Perkins had already given the Tampa Bay Rays 12 hits through five innings when Liam Hicks turned the fourth into a 7-2 game. Three-run homer to right-center. Perkins's night was over in every way that mattered, and Tampa Bay was one win from a trip that almost nobody finishes clean.

They finished it. The Rays beat the Athletics 8-4 at Sutter Health Park, went 9-0 on the West Coast, and became the second East Coast team in major league history to do that. The 1977 Red Sox were the first. Tampa Bay is 74-46, first in the American League, and it just scored 30 runs in three games against the Athletics after sweeping Colorado and Seattle.

Two in the second, then Cortes ended the streak

Jonny DeLuca doubled to start the second. Cedric Mullins bunted for a hit. Richie Palacios singled DeLuca in. Taylor Walls bunted the runners over. Yandy Díaz reached on a fielder's choice that Perkins booted, Mullins scoring. 2-0, and the inning ended on a double play that felt like a missed chance only if you ignored the two runs already up there.

Mullins doubled in Junior Caminero in the third. Hicks was thrown out at the plate on the same play, a challenge that stood. 3-0. Then Drew Rasmussen finally gave up a run.

Rasmussen had thrown 22 2/3 scoreless innings. [Carlos Cortes] doubled in Donovan Walton and Zack Gelof in the third, and the streak was over. 3-2. Rasmussen still finished five innings, four hits, two earned, three strikeouts, one walk. He won his fifth straight start and improved to 12-5. The scoreless streak ended. The trip did not.

The fourth that made 9-0 look inevitable

Díaz, Jonathan Aranda, and Caminero singled in a row with two outs in the fourth. 4-2. Hicks, already having a three-hit day in progress, hit his 16th homer. Aranda and Caminero scored ahead of him. 7-2, four runs, and Perkins was at 12 hits in five innings.

Perkins fell to 2-9. He is 0-7 in 11 starts. Six earned, seven runs, one homer, one walk, two strikeouts. The Athletics have asked him to be a starter through a last-place season. Wednesday was the version of that ask that cannot survive a Rays lineup that just scored 12 the night before.

Díaz singled in Palacios in the eighth. 8-2. Gelof homered. Lawrence Butler homered. 8-4, two solo shots in the eighth that made the box score look closer than the trip felt. [Michael Grove] had given those two balls up. Steven Matz and Casey Legumina closed the ninth.

Nine and oh, and a road streak that matches the franchise

Tampa Bay swept three at Colorado, three at Seattle, and three in West Sacramento. The Associated Press noted the Rays are the 13th team since 1900 to go 9-0 on any trip, and they matched the longest road winning streak in franchise history. They are 33-28 on the road. DeLuca had three hits. Hicks went 3-for-5 with the homer and three RBI. The lineup did not need six homers, the way it did on Tuesday. It needed 15 hits and one three-run swing. It got both.

The Athletics are 47-74. They have lost three straight and 9 of 11. Gelof and Butler going deep in the eighth is a reminder they can still hit a fastball. It is not a reminder they can keep a first-place club in the yard for nine games.

Baltimore comes to Tampa Bay on Friday. Texas comes to Sutter Health Park. The Rays get to go home as the best team in the league and the only East Coast club in 49 years to leave the West without a loss. I am not calling that a pennant. I am calling it the trip you remember in October when someone asks when this club stopped being a good story and started being the problem.

AthX Engine angle

The Rays finished with 15 AthX Engine team fantasy points, fifth on Wednesday's board. Hicks had 11 hitting fantasy points, tied for fourth among hitters. Rasmussen had 11 pitching fantasy points. DeLuca added 8 hitting fantasy points. The Athletics finished at -1.

Track Hicks, Rasmussen, and the Rays on the marketplace. AthX Engine grades the production. Price is what traders pay next.

*Sources: MLB.com gameday wrap, ESPN recap, ESPN box score, AthX Engine daily scoring for August 12, 2026. Information only; not financial advice.*