Photo courtesy of Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

Last night certainly didn’t go as planned. I don’t think any self respecting Rays fan would have guessed that “Big Game” James would revert back to “All Fields” Shields. However, Murphy’s Law can sometimes take too strong of a hold and things just don’t go as planned. Chalk last nights game up to that. In short, for the three innings that the bottom fell out, the pitching just wasn’t there.

Shields looked good for the first three innings. Save for a Ian Kinsler single to center in the first and a Murphy single to center in the third, Shields was able to strike out two and induce ground and pop outs. Tampa Bay was able to hold the Rangers to no runs while the good guys scored three runs on the other side of the plate. Then with a 3-0 going into the bottom of the fourth, the bottom fell out.

Shields started off the fourth by hitting Elvis Andrus with a pitch, sending him to first. That was followed up by a Josh Hamilton single to right, moving Andrus to second. With two on and nobody out, Michael Young (2-4, with a run scored) singled to left to load the bases. Shields then hit Adrian Beltre in the knee with a fastball to put the Rangers on the board. James would give up four more runs in the fourth off of a two run single by Mike Napoli, a wild pitch, and Mitch Moreland ground out to second which should have been a double play to end the inning. Though the Rays got touched for five runs, they were still in the game down, by two…until the sixth at least.

Shields gave up two more singles to Napoli and Cruz in the bottom of the sixth. Maddon pulled Shields and replaced him with Jake McGee who gave up a Craig Gentry sacrifice to first, moving Napoli and Cruz to second and third. After McGee hit Moreland with a pitch to load the bases, Maddon called Juan Cruz into the game who gave up a two run Kinsler double to put the Rays down 7-3. The Rangers put the final nail in the coffin in the coffin on a Moreland blast to right off of Brandon Gomes.

Shields didn’t have his stuff Saturday. Gran juego depended primarily on his fastball and his usually very dependable changeup. He however, had a hard time locating both the fastball and the changeup, finding them either well outside of the zone or hanging over the meat of the plate (see the strikezone plot below).

Things went OK (not great though) on the offensive side of things. The positive: Matt Joyce and Evan Longoria hit two and three run homers respectively, which counted for five of the six Rays runs. Yet, they could have incurred so much more damage. Derek Holland’s win is certainly not indicative of his start. Holland only went five innings, gave up three runs (one earned) on six hits and two walks, and struggled mightily all along the way. But somehow he still got the W. The Rays had ample opportunities to capitalize on runners in scoring position the whole night. The biggest opportunity to bury the Rangers early came in the first with the bases loaded. Holland walked in a run, however they just couldn’t get runners across the plate. That was fairly indicative of the entire night. My mind is filled with too many what ifs…what if they scored three more runs, would I even be worrying about this now?

In the end, the Rays threatened in the first, second, fifth, sixth, and ninth innings, but did nothing to capitalize on those threats. Though home runs are wonderful, the Rays cannot just depend on the long ball to score. They have to be able to drive in runners on second and third by playing fundamental baseball; relying on base hits, bunting runners over, and running well on the base paths (yeah, I’m looking at you Mr. BJ “I got a really good jump and then slowed way down when trying to steal a bag in the fifth” Upton).

Thankfully our boys are coming back to the Trop for games three and four tomorrow. And they’re coming back in good shape too! At 1-1 with 15 runs scored over the course of two days, and having won six of their last seven games, I have to feel that they’ll be coming home with the momentum that they left for Texas with on Thursday.

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