Jennings' homer in 10th lifts Rays past Rangers

They wanted everything, pulling at his jersey and taking his belt. Had Desmond Jennings spent a little more time in the middle of the postgame scrum at home plate he might have emerged with his uniform pants around his knees.

“I had tights on, too,” Jennings said. “That wouldn’t have been a good look.”

Oh, it all looked good late Wednesday afternoon as the Tampa Bay Rays earned the 1,000th victory in franchise history with a dramatic finish.

Jennings crushed the first pitch he saw from Mark Lowe, sending it deep into the left field stands to give the Rays a 5-4, 10-inning win against the Texas Rangers in front of 11,190 at Tropicana Field.

The matinee was billed as a senior prom for senior citizens, and Jennings crashed the dance by scoring the first and last runs of a much needed win for the Rays, who now trail the wild card-leading Red Sox by seven games with 20 games to play.

The Rangers, who trailed 4-2 after seven innings, evened the score when Mike Napoli homered off Joel Peralta in the eighth inning and Ian Kinsler homered off Kyle Farnsworth in the ninth.

Given their dim playoff chances, the Rays couldn’t let the game slip away.

“A big slip if we had not been able to pull that out,” manager Joe Maddon said.

Enter Jennings, who had not been as hot at the plate during the last nine games as he had when he was called up in late-July.

Jennings was batting .354 after his four-hit game Aug. 28 in Toronto that included two home runs. He had just three hits in his next nine games as his average fell to .303. Jennings walked and scored in the first but was hitless with a strikeout in his next three at-bats.

Maddon said Jennings looked frustrated when he returned to the dugout in the fifth after he chased a pitch out of the strike zone.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jennings said, when told of Maddon’s comment. “I haven’t been comfortable at the plate, but you go through that, so I was frustrated at myself a little bit. They’ve been making some good pitches. It’s been tough, but that (home run) made me feel a lot better.”

One swing and the question is: What slump?

“I forgot about the previous 10 days,” Jennings said.

Maddon said that is the beauty of his rookie left fielder.

“He doesn’t carry any negativity with him as far as I can tell,” Maddon said. “He’s very talented. He’s very competitive, and he does it in his own quiet way, but you can see it in his eyes, he’s burning. I really have a lot of faith in him.”

Brandon Guyer, whose sixth-inning homer looked at the time to be an insurance run but loomed large after Farnsworth’s blown save, played alongside of Jennings for most of the summer at Durham.

“You come to expect things like that,” Guyer said. “He’s a great player, very talented. He does a lot of fun things on the field. It doesn’t surprise me at all.”

It was a day of milestones for the Rays. They earned the franchise’s 1,000^th win.

“Beautiful,” Maddon said. “That’s a nice milestone, and many more thousands to come.”

Starting pitcher David Price became the third pitcher in team history and the second this week to reach 200 strikeouts, joining Scott Kazmir (2007) and James Shields (Monday). Price also reached 200 innings for the second straight season.

And Jennings notched the first walk-off hit of his young career, and a home run to boot.

“It’s a great feeling, I’ll tell you that,” Jennings said. “It’s one of the best feelings in the world seeing everybody huddled up (at home plate) waiting for you.”

rmooney@tampatrib.com

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