…And with one out in the bottom of the 18th, a mere hour or so after the remaining fans at the Trop celebrated the 14th inning stretch, the Rays began to put together an inning. Forget that they had other opportunities and squandered them; This one felt different. Desmond Jennings, who was initially scratched from the lineup card (and put in the game in the 10th), cranked a double up the left-field line — quickly* getting into scoring position. Then an erratic Bud Norris fell behind Yunel Escobar, ultimately allowing him to reach on a 3-2 walk. With runners on first and second, one of the heroes from the last extra innings game, David DeJesus, came to the plate with one goal in mind — put the ball into play. DeJesus sent an 0-1 hanger into center-field, plating Jennings from second. A few game peripherals are below.
- How about David DeJesus, Ben Zobrist, Desmond Jennings, and Jose Lobaton — their magic number was four. The mighty foursome teamed up to go 11-23 with four doubles, four RBI and four runs. On the contrary, Wil Myers, Evan Longoria, and Matt Joyce went a combined 1-18 with four strikeouts. It should be noted: Neither Longo nor Myers could make solid contact on off-speed pitches.
- Pitching, pitching, pitching. The Rays leaned on 11 pitchers in Saturday night’s 18 inning marathon. Faced with the task of keeping the Orioles stagnant, the bullpen came up huge. Enter the tandem of Jamey Wright, Alex Torres, Brandon Gomes, Joel Peralta, Fernando Rodney, Jake Odorizzi, Cesar Ramos, Wesley Wright and Jeremy Hellickson, who combined for 12-2/3 innings of two hit, five strikeout ball. Rodney, Odorizzi, Ramos and Hellickson were particularly good. Each ate up the innings, while Rodney and Ramos teamed up to retire a combined 10 batters.
- The Rays ended the night…urm, morning atop the Wildcard standings, following the Rangers 2-1 loss to the Royals.
- Things got a little weird late in the game. It’s good to know that both Chewbacca and Gene Simmons are September call-ups:
The New What Next
Day game after a two day, two season (summer and fall), night game. Alex Cobb will toe the rubber against Miguel Gonzalez Saturday. A good number of Rays have put up some good numbers against Gonzalez who owns a 1-1 record with a 3.68 ERA against Tampa Bay in his last four starts. You can read the series preview here, and I’ll post the starting lineup when it becomes available.
Rays 9/21/13 Starting Lineup
DeJesus LF
Jennings CF
Zobrist 2B
Longoria 3B
Myers RF
Young DH
Loney 1B
Molina C
Escobar SS
*Quickly being a relative term, of course.