Ben Zobrist put the Rays on the board in the sixth inning with a two-out solo blast to right. (Photo courtesy of the Tampa Bay Rays)
Ben Zobrist put the Rays on the board in the sixth inning with a two-out, solo blast to right. (Photo courtesy of the Tampa Bay Rays)

The Tampa Bay Rays took down the Milwaukee Brew Crew Tuesday night by a score of 5-1, in a superbly pitched, eight inning outing by Alex Cobb. He and Grant Balfour combined to mow down 14 Brewers via the strikeout. For the Rays, they’ve now won their fifth consecutive series.

With the exceptions of one run and two walks, Alex Cobb outdid his last start of a week ago, tossing eight innings of one run, three-hit ball. Cobb started the night by retiring the first 10 batters in order, with four of those outs coming as strikeouts of the whiffy variety — all on his split-change. And though Cobb got himself into a run scoring jam in the fifth inning — on an Aramis Ramirez single, a Khris Davis walk, a well placed Mark Reynolds sacrifice bunt to third and a Scooter Gennett sac-fly to center — he was able to limit the Brewers’ damage to only one run, keeping the Rays in the game until the eighth inning when the offense ultimately kicked down the door.

It was clearly obvious that Cobb had good, deceptive stuff from the get-go. How deceptive was his stuff? Of Cobb’s 12 total strikeouts, 10 were swinging. The Cobber was particularly good — he threw his split-change for strikes 32 times and impressively coaxed 15 whiffs. The Brewers were able to put it in play only one time. For a pitch that was flat and lifeless a couple of weeks back, it is wonderful to see Cobb recoup and be able to get the depth and run that makes it an equalizing pitch.

With a four run lead in the ninth, Joe Maddon turned to Grant Balfour to close things out. Balfour was on. He quickly struck out Carlos Gomez and Jonathan Lucroy to open the inning and then induced a Ryan Braun ground out to short to end the game.

Matt Garza was also sharp for the Brewers, holding Tampa Bay to one run on five hits while striking out two walking two. Garza carried the one run lead into the bottom of the sixth inning, but made a mistake to Ben Zobrist — leaving a 95-mph fastball on the inner third of the plate. Zobrist, who hit into a pair of hard hit fly outs in his previous at-bats, turned on the pitch and delivered his ninth home run of the year — knotting the score at one apiece.

I wrote this in our recap of Monday night’s game, though it bears mentioning once again. Situational statistics can be a good predictor of things. The stats say if Tampa Bay doesn’t do anything early in the game, the odds are good they’ll make something happen in the fifth or sixth innings. The Rays combined slash line jumps from .243 BA/.320 OBP/.373 SLG/.693 OPS in the first inning, to .277 BA/.346 OBP/.410 SLG/.756 OPS in the sixth. Not so ironically, the Rays made their offensive breakthrough in the bottom of the sixth inning.

LHPR Will Smith entered the game in the bottom of the eighth inning and Joe Maddon pinched Kevin Kiermaier in favor of Sean Rodriguez who drew a lead off walk. Rodriguez moved to second on a beautiful sac-bunt by Desmond Jennings, then to third on a wild pitch. Zobrist plated the go ahead run on a double, bringing Logan Forsythe (pinch hitting for Matt Joyce) to the plate. Forsythe crushed a double off the left field wall, bringing home Zobrist and putting himself into scoring position.

Evan Longoria was intentionally walked to set up the lefty-on-lefty matchup with James Loney, though Smith walked him to load the bases. Smith’s night was done; enter Marco Estrada.

Brandon Guyer sent a slow roller toward Mark Reynolds at first base. Reynolds barehanded the ball and, instead of taking the sure out at first, threw to home platel Bet Forsythe safely crossed the plate,stretching the lead to three runs.

With the bases still loaded, Yunel Escobar disagreed with a called first strike that was well outside of the zone. Escobar left the batters box and muttered something. Home plate umpire Bill Welke and Escobar appeared to have words with one another as he stepped back into the box, leading to Escobar’s ejection.

Ian Malinowski (of DRaysBay) put things into perspective,

Yunel Escobar got ejected for looking down and muttering, because umpires don’t like Yunel Escobar. I get it though. When the guy next to me looks at the ground and mutters on the subway, I move to the next car, but if I had the power of an umpire, I’d surely be drunk on it, and would make him leave instead.

Cole Figueroa came in and took Escobar’s plate appearance and delivered a sacrifice fly that scored Longoria to put the Rays up 5-1.  Loney was tagged out attempting to move up to third on the play, ending the inning.

The Rays ended the night 7.0 games out of first in the AL East, 2.5 games behind the third place Yankees, and 4.5 games back in the Wildcard standings — just a game behind the Royals.

The New What Next

The Rays will go for the series sweep Wednesday afternoon with David Price on the mound. Price will be opposed by Yovani Gallardo (5-5, 3.57 ERA) who the Rays have never faced. However, a handful of Rays have faced him when they appeared on other rosters. Eno Saris of Fangraphs writes of the ground ball pitcher,

Only his curve ball rates above-average by both grounders and whiffs. The sinker gets 55% grounders, so that’s good, but no whiffs (3.7%). Same for the four-seamer (45% and 3.4% respectively). The change gets ground balls (58%) but no whiffs (7.4%, 15% is average). Same on the slider (48% but only 11% whiffs). The cutter is probably his slider, but has the same numbers as his slider too. That’s how a pitcher reworks his arsenal to work after losing stuff — Gallardo has the best ground-ball rate of his career. With one pitch that’s all-around good. The arsenal seems to suggest that he can keep up the ground-ball work, for what it’s worth.

You can read about the pitching matchup in our series preview.

Rays 7/30/14 Starting Lineup

Jennings CF
Zobrist DH
Joyce LF
Longoria 3B
Loney 1B
Forsythe 2B
Escobar SS
Molina C
Kiermaier RF
Price RHP

Noteworthiness

  • Alex Cobb has won each of his last five decisions, but Tuesday night marked his first home victory of the 2014 season.
  • Clayton Kershaw this year: 12-2, 1.76 ERA, 112.1 IP, 76 H, 15 BB, 141 K. Rays staff last 12 games: 11-1, 1.42 ERA, 108 IP, 73 H, 25 BB, 123 K
  • We wrote about Ryan Hanigan, Wil Myers, and David Price yesterday. Check it out if you haven’t already.
  • If you’re keeping track, that’s the 11th win in 12 games and the 29th in 41. Tampa Bay is now one game under .500 at 53-54 — they were 18 under on June 10. The Orioles won in 12 innings, so the Rays remain 7.0 games back in AL East. Tampa Bay has seven games left against Baltimore. The question du jour: Is that the “magic” Price number?
  • Your tweets of the day:

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