It’s been said you can’t win games if you don’t score runs. And if the Rays 2 – 0 loss (the eighth shutout of the year) to Boston Tuesday night did anything, its confirm that theory to a T. Tampa Bay wasted an outstanding 8 IP/3 H/2 R/2 ER/0 BB/9 K outing by David Price, dropping their seventh of 10 games and falling to 8.5 games behind the AL East leading Red Sox. At least you can’t blame Rays for not doing anything with RISP this time — only two runners reached second safely; James Loney in the second inning and Yunel Escobar in the eighth.
Category Archives: Lineups
Looking Backward While Moving Forward: I know I’ll Be Glad When This Road Trip Is Over
Tampa Bay starts the day one game ahead of the Cleveland Indians and the Baltimore Orioles in the Wildcard race, following another sloppily played game against the Seattle Mariners, Saturday night. The game had the all the hallmarks of a team that’s struggling to keep it together: Poor fielding, questionable pitching, and a non-existent offense. Going into yesterday’s game, Rays skipper, Joe Maddon, was quoted as saying,
“This has been our worst baseball all year.”
Looking Backward While Moving Forward: An Open Letter to the Rays
As of now, Tampa Bay is 40-11 against sub .500 teams. Of those 11 losses, 10 have come by two or fewer runs. Just think, the good guys would be sitting pretty with an 82-58 record had they won even five of those games. As Kevin, a friend of the blog, noted, “At this point its time to panic. Not panic to the point of just over playing, but reaching down to your soul and using every bit of talent and skill you have.”
Looking Backward While Moving Forward: Hellickson Sharp in His Return to the Mound
Suffice to say, at this point in the season Jeremy Hellickson needed to string together a good start. With all of the external factors effecting the probability of the Rays finding a postseason berth, compounded with the fact that Boston absolutely blew out the Tigers in an earlier game, the pressure was on Hellickson and the Rays to win. After a six start stretch where Hellickson relinquished (on average) 4.1 earned runs, while averaging only 4.1 innings per outing*, it would be safe to say that no one knew what we’d see out of Jeremy upon his return to the mound. But Hellickson came out of the fog Wednesday night, putting together a solid 5.1 inning shutout outing.
Looking Backward While Moving Forward: Angels Throttle Rays 11-2
Tampa Bay found themselves on the wrong end of an 11-2 loss against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Monday night. The game was ugly — filled with missed scoring opportunities, bad pitching (especially in the sixth and seventh innings), and lethargic ball play overall. The Rays start the day 5.5 games behind the Red …
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