Chicago Cubs at Tampa Bay Rays: Final Score & Recap

The Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Chicago Cubs 3-2 on June 13, 2024, at Tropicana Field, completing a game that was decided almost entirely in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Cubs carried a 2-0 lead into that frame, but Mark Leiter Jr. could not hold it, surrendering three consecutive singles to Amed Rosario, Yandy Díaz, and Josh Lowe that erased the deficit and handed Tampa Bay a lead it would never relinquish. The DiamondIQ model's estimate of Tampa Bay winning the game, which opened at 54 percent before first pitch, climbed to 100 percent by the final out.

The seventh-inning rally was the unmistakable turning point of the contest, and the DiamondIQ model's win-probability tracking quantifies exactly how damaging each blow was. Josh Lowe's go-ahead single off Leiter represented the single largest swing of the game at plus-16.1 percent, while Yandy Díaz's run-scoring single two batters earlier added 14.5 percent on its own. Rosario's single, which opened the inning, contributed an additional 10.2 percent. All three came at Leiter's expense, collapsing what had been a comfortable Cubs advantage built on two runs in the fifth. Despite generating the most WPA of any pitcher in the game at plus-31.7 percent, Justin Steele was handed a lead he could not keep once the bullpen entered.

Chicago's final chance came in the ninth against Pete Fairbanks, but Nico Hoerner's inning-ending double-play groundout swung the win probability 15.7 percent against the Cubs and effectively closed the door. The Cubs finished with just three hits and two errors, while Tampa Bay's seven hits proved more than sufficient. The DiamondIQ model leans toward the Rays' bullpen combination of Fairbanks and Colin Poche, who contributed plus-15.2 and plus-10.8 percent respectively, as the decisive late-game factor that sealed a narrow but complete Tampa Bay victory.