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Tampa Bay Rays (27-19) At Oakland Athletics (24-23), 3:35 P.m.

(Sports Network) - The soaring Tampa Bay Rays take aim at their first-ever road sweep of the Oakland Athletics when the two clubs wrap up a three-game series with today's matinee from McAfee Coliseum.

The Rays recorded their 10th victory in the club's last 13 games with Tuesday's 3-2 come-from-behind triumph over the badly-slumping Athletics. Dioner Navarro knocked in all three Tampa runs with a bases-clearing double in the top of the eighth inning that erased a 1-0 deficit.

Navarro's big hit made a winner out of Scott Kazmir (3-1) after the Rays ace limited Oakland to one run and four hits over the first seven innings. The hard-throwing lefty racked up eight strikeouts and walked just one batter on the evening.

Troy Percival surrendered a solo home run to the A's Frank Thomas in the bottom of the ninth inning but still managed to pick up his 13th save of the year.

Greg Smith (2-4) took the hard-luck loss for Oakland, which fell for the third straight game and ninth time in its last 11 contests. The rookie lefty yielded just two runs and five hits over seven-plus frames, but allowed the first two Tampa batters to reach base before Navarro later delivered his go-ahead hit off reliever Joey Devine.

Tuesday's victory upped the Rays' season record to 27-19, and the team has a chance to move nine game over .500 for the first time in franchise history.

Tampa Bay will also be sending out a red-hot pitcher to the mound today in Andy Sonnanstine, who enters this matchup having won five consecutive decisions. The right-hander hasn't lost since a 7-1 setback to Seattle on April 9 and the Rays are 7-2 in his nine starts so far this year.

Sonnanstine had one of his best outings this past Friday in St. Louis, where he held the Cardinals to one run and eight hits over eight strong innings to lead Tampa Bay to a 3-1 win.

The second-year hurler's only previous start against Oakland came last August at Tropicana Field, with Sonnanstine coming out the victor after tossing five innings of two-run ball and registering seven strikeouts.

While Sonnanstine has been piling up the victories of late, his counterpart tonight, Dana Eveland, enters today's tilt on a four-start winless streak. The 24-year-old lefty has two losses and a pair of no-decisions over that stretch, although he's allowed three runs or fewer in each of last three outings.

Eveland was last in action Friday at Atlanta, where he gave up two runs and six hits through 5 2/3 innings and did not receive a decision in Oakland's 3-2 loss.

He will be facing the Rays for the first time in his career today and hopes to continue his season success at the Coliseum. In three home starts this year, Eveland is 2-0 with a sparkling 0.92 earned run average over 19 2/3 innings of work.

Tampa Bay won six of its 10 encounters with the Athletics in 2007 and took two of three games from Oakland in its lone visit to McAfee Coliseum last year.

Oakland Athletics

Scoreboard

Wed, Jul. 23 FINAL
Oakland (52-48) 3
Tampa Bay (58-41) 4

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