ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Leadoff hitter Brad Miller, an Orlando native who graduated from Olympia High School, homered twice to help the Seattle Mariners send the Tampa Bay Rays to their sixth straight loss with a 5-4 victory on Tuesday night.
Miller has four home runs this season, which have come in a pair of two-homer games. He connected for his first two big league homers on July 19 at Houston.
Tampa Bay also got two homers from its leadoff hitter, Ben Zobrist.
According to the Rays, it is just the third time since 1916, when records are available, that both leadoff hitters had multihomer games. The others were June 5, 1994 (Minnesota's Chuck Knoblauch and Tony Phillips of Detroit) and July 8, 1965 (Houston's Joe Morgan and Felipe Alou of the Milwaukee Braves).
Lake Brantley High School grad, Nick Franklin, started at 2nd base for the Mariners. Franklin went 0-5 at the plate but had a nice bare-handed play to get Evan Longoria at first in the bottom of the fifth inning.