On the heels of their league leading 11th shutout of the season, and behind a few timely hits and an impressive start from Chris Archer, the Tampa Bay Rays found themselves on the winning track once more, taking down the Astros by a 5-0 margin.
Archer’s slider was on point Thursday night. The pitch paired well with his mid-90’s fastball, and was especially effective as a put away pitch. Archer threw the slider for strikes 75% of the time, and racked up four of his eight strikeouts with the pitch — all swinging. The Astros were strapped for hard contact, ultimately picking up just three singles — two on good pitches down in the zone. He did have a bit of trouble with the AL hit leader, Jose Altuve. Houston’s second baseman beat out a leadoff, infield single in the fourth, then swiped second to get into scoring position. But Archer never allowed him advance to third, putting down the next three batters in order, and getting out of the inning unscathed.
Archer was able to lower his ERA to minuscule 3.14 over the course of his 6-2/3 innings of shutout baseball. Furthermore, he’s allowed two or fewer earned runs in six of his past seven starts. To that end, he’s allowed only four earned runs over his last 40-1/3 innings, easily making him one of the more consistent pitchers on the Rays staff.
Brad Boxberger, Joel Peralta, and Grant Balfour followed Archer, allowing only one base runner to reach — a one out, Dexter Fowler walk in the eighth. Balfour was impressive in his perfect ninth inning, striking out the side on 13 pitches.
The offense started slowly, carrying an 0-16 streak with runners in scoring position (extending back to Tuesday) into the fourth inning. ISimilar to the day before, the Rays found themselves with an opportunity to take an early lead with runners on the corners and no outs in the first. Desmond Jennings reached on an opposite field single, then moved to third on an errant pickoff play. Ben Zobrist reached safely on a walk, but the next three batters (Kevin Kiermaier, Evan Longoria, and James Loney) were put down in order, and the Rays couldn’t capitalize. An interesting stat was brought to my attention: the Rays now have more strikeouts wRISP (140) than hits (137). Oof.
Longoria’s out was particularly egregious, staring at a middle-middle hanging slider as it passed him by for strike three.
It was truly a tale of two games. After allowing another scoring opportunity in the third to pass, the Rays finally got on the board with an RBI single by Yunel Escobar — scoring Loney from second, and moving Guyer to third. Ryan Hanigan followed that up with a perfect suicide squeeze, plating the second run of the game. Somewhere, Don Zimmer was smiling.
They, thankfully, weren’t done. Kevin Kiermaier, who barely missed a home run in a fifth inning at-bat, blasted a two-run homer in the seventh inning — his fourth of the year. Evan Longoria followed with a mammoth, pull side, shot to left.
After an atrocious month of May, it’s nice to see Longo finally coming around. Though he isn’t quite there just yet, Longo has slashed .279 BA/.364 OBP/.529 SLG/.893 OPS in June, while lowering his K% and taking more walks.
Source: FanGraphs
More impressively, he’s hit four of his nine homers during this month. I’m also encouraged that six of his nine homers have been pull side shots. When Longoria is on his game, he punishes pitchers on inside pitches. For the better part of this season, Evan Longoria has been a disaster against inside pitches, and this could be a good sign that he’s coming around.
Moving forward.
The New What Next
David Price will take the mound Friday, looking to overtake Felix Hernandez for the MLB strikeout lead. He’ll be opposed by Jarrod Cosart. He held Tampa Bay to three runs last Saturday, despite allowing 10 Rays to reach on nine hits and a walk. He was hittable then, and I’d argue he’ll be hittable Friday. You can read about the pitching matchup, and so much more, in our series preview. I’ll post the starting lineup when it becomes available.
Rays 6/20/14 Starting Lineup
Jennings CF
Kiermaier RF
Longoria 3B
Loney 1B
Sands DH
Guyer LF
Escobar SS
Molina C
Forsythe 2B
Price LHP
Noteworthiness
- Ben Zobrist will get the day off, with Logan Forsythe handling the duties at second base. And yes, you read that correctly: the uber productive bat of Jose Molina will hit eighth, ahead of, and essentially protecting, the mighty bat of Forsythe. Ahem…
- Jeremy Hellickson will pitch for Triple-A Durham again on Sunday.
- The Rays have now won five of their last eight, though they still have majors-worst 29-45 record.
- Marc Topkin writes, “And that led manager Joe Maddon to take the opportunity during his postgame media session to reinforce how much better they need to be, specifically in those potential run-scoring situations. “It’s still a big part of our problem,” Maddon said. “We see pitches, we get guys on base, we’ve got to drive them in more consistently.”‘
- Your tweet of the day,
#Rays Maddon says biggest difference in Archer tonight was keeping emotions under control in addition to better fastball and slider
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) June 20, 2014