Update: Neither Matt Joyce or Desmond Jennings will be in tonight’s lineup. They are, presumably, available as pinch hitters.
5/12/12 Starting Lineup:
Zobrist RF
Rodroguez 3B
Upton CF
Keppinger 1B
Guyer LF
Scott DH
Johnson SS
Gimenez C
Rhymes 2B
Moore LHP
I’m not a huge fan of what can be deemed pointless statistics. Call me crazy, but the color of the pitchers hair, compounded with the barometric pressure of the third row of seats in section 143 at precise moment a home run is hit, seems like fairly useless information.
As much as Twitter can offer loads of useless information and pointless statistical analysis, I periodically check the @BARaysFanSite (hint-hint) account during Rays games, last night being no different. What can I say, I’m a glutton for punishment when it comes to random (read: somewhat inane) bits of information and, well…pointless statistical analysis. Besides, you never know when those nuggets of knowledge may come in handy on Jeopardy, or something.
Low and behold, DRaysBay posted a few stats that I, at the time, thought were pointless. Yet in retrospect, they’re absolutely relevant now. The most relevant tweet being:
“
#rays and#orioles tied at 1 thanks to an Adam Jones HR.#Orioles are 19-7 when they homer in a game this year.”
When I initially read that tweet, I thought to myself, “yeah-yeah, the Rays are up 3-1, and Hellickson seems in full control of his game.” And to be fair Hellickson was in control of his game last night. The two big hits that Hellickson gave up were mistakes that he left out over the plate. Otherwise, he did a great job of inducing ground-outs and pop-outs, while striking out six, and walking one in his 6-2/3 innings of work. One could argue that he probably could have finished off the seventh inning himself. Nevertheless, the stat above was a good predictor for what was to come, and now the Orioles at 20-7 when hitting a home run in a game.
I’ll be honest, I was a bit jealous of the Orioles when I watched their on field celebration following the Jim Johnson 1-2-3 KO punch to end the game. But, good on the O’s; they beat the Rays at their own game. Namely, consistently keeping the pressure on Tampa Bay offensively, while also relying on a very good bullpen to suppress, any late inning Rays threats.
Let’s not kid ourselves, Dana Eveland certainly wasn’t exactly Cy Young last night. The Rays could and should have taken full advantage of the gifts (cough…five hits, six walks, and two hit batters) that Eveland dished out. Instead, they left eight men on the bags, including runners in scoring position in both the second and fourth innings.
There’s an old adage: You can’t win games if you don’t score runs. And when you look at the final score, 4-3, you realize that, as with the Yankees series that preceded the current series, Tampa Bay opportunities to win the game. Yet they couldn’t get the timely hitting that they needed to drive in two or three more runs.
History is history, and Tampa Bay will need to exploit two things if they’re going to be successful tonight: Baltimore leads all of baseball in the home run column, and the O’s are ranked 29th out of 30 in fielding. I know what you’re thinking, if Baltimore is leading all of baseball in home runs, how exactly can the Rays exploit that?
The majority of Baltimore’s home runs are one run homers. I’m not willing to wave the white flag and admit that the Orioles are, undoubtedly, going to hit home runs. However, the odds are good that they will hit one or two dingers tonight, especially if Matt Moore continues down this current path of mediocrity. Moore can limit any potential damage incurred, by limiting the number of Oriole base runners. Hellickson did a good job of that last night, and Moore should utilize his plan of attack against the O’s tonight. If I may, young Matt, 22 runs in 34.2 innings of work aint gonna cut it tonight, nor will a 1.5/1 strike out to walk ratio.
Tampa Bay will need to exploit both Brian Matusz (1-4, 5.91 ERA) and the worst defense in the AL. That is to say, the Rays will need to do what they do best: play small ball, rattle Matusz, and score runs early before the second best bullpen in all of baseball (a combined 9-2, 2.13 ERA) comes into the game.
Matusz is 3-2 with a 5.70 ERA in his career against the Rays. Though only five Ray batters have official at-bats against the tall lefty, both BJ Upton and Ben Zobrist have had considerable success against Matusz, hitting a combined .349 with four RBI and a home run in 23 at-bats. They will be very important in the lineup tonight. You’d have to imagine that a very hot Sean Rodriguez, as well as the LHP loving Jeff Keppinger will factor into things as well. It is absolutely imperative that the Rays RBI leader Luke Scott, as well as Carlos Pena will need to flex their power muscles too. No more of this bunting on two strikes, ‘Los. You’re a power hitter. I know, you’re trying to work out of a slump. But Tampa Bay needs your power, not a bunted foul-out.
Tonight’s starting lineup will be posted when it’s released. Until then, enjoy the video of Sean Rodriguez releasing a hockey like shot on Matt Wieters.
[mlbvideo id=”21337103″ width=”400″ height=”224″ /]
(Click the image above)