A day after David Price dazzled the baseball world with an excellent one run, one hit complete game against his former team, it was Drew Smyly’s turn to dazzle. Smyly turned in a sensational performance to call his own, a two hit (both singles), no walk complete game shutout against the Blue Jays — just two starts after setting his own major league career record by finishing seven and two-third innings.
He wasn’t overpowering — his four strikeouts speak to that. But with an emphasis on pitching to contact, Smyly was able to keep the Blue Jays off-balance by spotting his fastball both at the top and at the bottom of the zone. When he threw his fastball up in the zone, the result — more often than not — was a lazy fly ball.
And while the overall numbers paint Drew as a fly ball pitcher (42.7% FB% vs 36.9% GB%), he is proving to be a fascinating hurler with unique stuff. He was able to force the Blue Jays to pound the ball into the ground on his curve ball and cutter, resulting in easy to play grounders. His uncommon ability to induce both weak poppers of his fastball, and grounders on his cutter or curve — almost at will — makes Smyly a complex threat to opposing hitters.
While Smyly let a few of his pitches get away from him as the game wore on, he never seemed flustered — Joe Maddon called him “unflappable” in his post game presser. Rather Drew, calmly, centered himself and come back with a good pitch. His overall line: 9 IP/2 H/0 BB/4 K/105 pitches (79 strikes, 72% K%).
Incidentally, one of Smyly’s criticisms upon “The Trade” was that he couldn’t consistently pitch deep into games. Yet, despite his first 5-1/3 IP start against the Athletics, Drew has averaged just over seven innings per start and a 1.55 ERA as a Ray. I’m not going to make the bold proclamation, that Smyly is an apt replacement for David Price — that would be an unfair comparison. I will say, however, that there hasn’t been a noticeable drop-off from that spot in the rotation since “The trade.” Moreover, there also hasn’t been a noticeable drop-off in the starting rotation overall. David Price is an asset to whichever team is lucky enough to have him in it’s starting lineup — be that Tampa Bay or Detroit. However, I think it’s time to move past the, “Did Andrew Friedman make a good move?” talking point. (Editor’s note: Do ya hear we Big Dog, or any other sports talk radio host in the area?) The move is paying dividends in the present, and dare I say I’m excited for what comes down the road?
Offensively, the Rays scored one fewer run in nine innings last night, than they had in the previous four games. Evan Longoria, who snapped an eight game hitting streak Thursday, put the Rays on the board in the second inning when he turned on a pitch up and in on his hands — cranking it well over the left-field wall.
Tampa Bay was quiet from then until the fourth when Will Myers led off the inning with a walk, promptly stealing second with a terrible slide. He was able to move to third when a breaking pitch in the dirt bounced of Dionner Navarro’s knee. With a runner at third and two outs, Kevin Kiermaier grounded a ball up the middle to plate the run. While Kiermaier has cooled significantly at the plate over the last few weeks, his hustle remains the same. KK — as he’s wont to do — rounded first and stretched the base hit into a double, in front of Colby Rasmus’s rushed throw from center field.
In the top of the fifth, Matt Joyce crushed a hanging curve over the head of Jose Bautista in right for a double. Marcus Stroman, who’d been victimized twice by Longoria up to this point, pitched very carefully to Longo, walking him on four pitches. James Loney followed by chopping a ball to third in what should have been a double play, but Danny Valencia had trouble getting the ball out of his glove, giving Longo an opportunity to disrupt Scott Tolleson who bounced his throw to first. Edwin Encarnacion couldn’t couldn’t cleanly field the throw, and Joyce rounded third to score.
In the sixth, Curt Casali ripped a screamer down the right-field line, but the carom held him to a single. Kiermaier was next, finding a hole in right side of the infield, and Desmond Jennings plated a run by lining an elevated fastball into center field to put runners on the corners. Marcus Stroman’s night was done.
With Aaron Loup on in relief, Ben Zobrist also found hole on the right side of the infield, scoring Kiermaier from third and moving Jennings to second. Next up, Joyce hit a high chopper up the middle which gave Zobrist enough time to get into second ahead of Tolleson’s throw, loading the bases for Longoria. Loup fell behind with a 2-1 count and tried to get a low and inside fastball past Longo. But Number Three dropped the bat head on it and pulled another line drive (the fifth hard hit of the inning) into the left-field corner — driving in two more runs with a double. Though Tampa Bay loaded the bases once again, Loup was finally able to get out of the jam with a double play off the bat of Yunel Escobar.
Will Myers closed out the scoring with an eighth inning solo shot off reliever Todd Redmond.
The New What Next
Jeremy Hellickson will attempt to give the Rays three consecutive uber quality starts (Editor’s note: The pitching staff overall), and three straight wins, when he butts heads with Mark Buehrle and the Blue Jays. Buehrle (11-8, 3.38 ERA) has struggled since soaring to a 10-1 start with a 2.10 ERA through his first 12 starts. In 13 starts since, he has a 4-7 record with a 4.76 ERA. Still, he has been a menace to the Rays this season, posting a 2-0 record while yielding only five runs in 20-1/3 innings of work. You can read about the pitching matchup inout series preview.
Rays 8/23/14 Starting Lineup
Jennings CF
Zobrist RF
Guyer LF
Longoria 3B
Forsythe 2B
Myers DH
Escobar SS
Molina C
Rodriguez 1B
Hellickson RHP
Noteworthiness
- Can’t get enough Drew Smyly? Here’s his post game interview with TK:
- The first out of the third inning, came when a Blue Jays fan reached over the wall to snag a foul popper before the sliding James Loney could make the catch. The first-base ump called fan interference and the man out.
- I couldn’t hear the game broadcast at Green Bench during the watch party, but apparently BA and DeWayne riffed on Will Myers shoes. Ian Malinowski (of DRaysBay) wrote about it, noting, “BA on Will Myers shoes: “Looks like he’s getting ready to go to prom . . . either that or he took it from some senior citizen the other day . . . Canadian coffee is outstanding.”‘ BA went on after Myers’ eighth inning solo shot, “I don’t want to say it’s the shoes, but it could be the shoes.”
- Drew Smyly and Alex Cobb became the first starters in Rays history to win consecutive starts, allowing two or fewer hits in each game (per Elias).