A rare sixth inning error by James Loney, and a blown save by the tandem of Grant Balfour and Brad Boxberger, sunk the Rays’ battleship Thursday night. Tampa Bay fell to the Angels by a score of 6-5 in the tough, Mike Trout inducing, walk-off loss. Look at the bright side: at least the Rays sixth starter was good.
Over the past 22-2/3 innings, Bedard’s given up two earned run — performing better than any of us ever dreamed. His outing last night was no different.
This time around, Bedard attacked the fastball hungry Angels with his curve ball and slider — lulling the hitters too sleep with the off-speed stuff, then surprising them with a fastball on the inner or outer regions of the plate. Bedard’s off-speed stuff was very good, and the Angels could only tally one hit off a wayward, misplaced slider (of the four hits he gave up, three came on his fastball).
An unfortunate error on the part of James Loney ended Erik Bedard’s night one out shy a quality start. Still, Bedard looked excellent in his 5.2 IP/4 H/2 R/0 ER/1 BB/5 K 86 pitch (56 strikes) outing. Bedard, who was in line for the W, has given up one or fewer earned runs in four consecutive games, lowering his ERA to 2.78
Beyond the kudos that both Jake McGee and Joel Peralta also deserve, for coming up big in their combined 2-1/3 innings of four strikeout ball, I have nothing nice to say about the ‘pen. They decimated a three-run lead, and ruined any chances of Bedard tallying his third win of the season — at least on this fateful eve. More importantly though, Balfour and company snuffed out any accrued momentum following their big wins in Seattle, combined with the pitching (and offensive) performances of the front eight innings — momentum that would have been nice to maintain going into tonight’s game with a scuffling Chris Archer slated to toe the rubber. Could Archer bounce back and pitch a gem, much like David Price? Absolutely. But, and it goes without saying, they never should have lost last night’s contest in the first place.
The New What Next
A scuffling Chris Archer will pitch opposite of a scuffling Jered Weaver, in tonight’s edition of Late Night with the Rays. Tampa Bay has tagged Weaver with 16 earned runs and a 5.92 ERA in his last four starts, whereas Archer looks to put together something longer than a five inning outing. You can read about the pitching matchup in our series preview, and I’ll post the starting lineup when it becomes available.
Rays 5/16/14 Starting Lineup
Jennings CF
DeJesus DH
Myers RF
Longoria 3B
Loney 1B
Forsythe 2B
Joyce LF
Escobar SS
Hanigan C
Acher RHP
Noteworthiness
- Grant Balfour on the Rays staggering loss:
[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/1Eyt8w0ZG0w”]