Tampa Bay beat the Angels 3-2 last night in a pitching duel between Jeremy Hellickson and CJ Wilson. The Rays have improved their record to 11-7 on the season, and have a 7-1 record at home so far in 2012. They’ll attempt to sweep the Angels and enter Texas on a wave of momentum following this afternoons 1:10 PM game.
The big story last night was the pitching. The Rays were able to exploit any mistakes (there were only a few) that CJ Wilson made, and eek out a victory. Ben Zobrist came up big with his with a third inning blast to section 143, in left. Tampa Bay added one more run in the third on a Keppinger RBI double to score Carlos Pena. Tampa Bay wouldn’t get their go ahead run until the eighth when Isringhausen walked Brandon Allen in his first at-bat in a Rays uniform, with the bases loaded, scoring Evan Longoria.
Helly wasn’t particularly efficient, lasting only six innings and throwing 100+ pitches, but I’ll be damned if he wasn’t effective. Posting a 6 IP/5 H/ 1 ER/2 BB/ 5 K line, with a 62% Strike/ball ratio, Hellickson shut down the Angels offense, with the exception of a fourth inning Vernon Wells home-run to left. The Rays had gone 55.1 innings without giving up a home-run up to that. Then again, I can’t really complain after all, they’ve only given up only one dinger in 60 innings.
Hellickson was robbed by the home-plate umpire on few different occasions where obvious strikes were called balls. That’s nothing new. To his credit, Helly cut down on throwing the cutter to great effect. Ironically, the Vernon Wells homer was on a cutter that didn’t, well, cut outside. Otherwise, Hellickson only threw nine cutters on the night. How about catcher Chris Gimenez as well? Gimenez gunned down two runners at second, while also robbing Kendrick of a base hit on a bunt.
Similar to David Price the night before, Hellickson was able to nullify any Albert Pujols threat, inducing a weakly hit ground-out in the first, and two consecutive strikeouts in the third and sixth innings. One only needs to look at his pitch type f/x (below) to see that he took a similar approach to Price: fastball inside to jam him up or dust him off of the plate, and nasty change-ups and curveballs over the plate. By the way, take a look at his KO pitch in the sixth; a nasty curveball right over the plate. Pujols’ knees buckled and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do but watch the pitch drop in for a strike!
Matt Moore looks to break out of a tepid, yet typical, April in search of his first victory of the year. Moore is coming off of a decent 6-2/3 IP start on April 20th against the Twins, where he received a no decision. The Rays ultimately lost that game, but picked up the following two. It’s common knowledge, at this point, that Moore gets of slow starts in April. He, ideally, should be coming out of his April doldrums, especially with three starts under his belt. And there’s no time like the present to do so. Moore could come up huge today if he’s able to attack Pujols and Co. in the same manner as his predecessors.
On the bump for the Angels is RHP Jerome Williams. Williams (1-0, 3.27 ERA) has posted a 3.27 ERA/11 H/4 ER line so far this season. He has only given up one home-run, while striking out nine and walking one, and also has a .250 OBA. Williams pounds the strike zone, and has thrown 19 first pitch strikes to the 28 batters he’s faced in 11 innings of work. That is to say, he’s somewhat of a spicy meatball.
I’d love to see the Rays win today, but I’d also be content with a good showing at the plate even if it comes at the hands of a loss. Tampa Bay travels to Texas to face a very hot 15-4 Rangers team tomorrow. They will need to muster as much offense as they can against the Rangers, who the Rays went 4-5 in the regular season. Yet, they also went 1-3 against them in the post-season. In short, they can go toe to toe with the Rangers, but they’ll need to have a good day at the plate which today would garnish a lot of momentum for the Rays going into Arlington. The starting Lineup is below. As always, Let’s Go Rays!
Rays (11-7) starting lineup, 4/26/12:
Jennings LF
Zobrist 2B
Pena 1B
Longoria 3B
Scott DH
Joyce RF
Upton CF
Molina C
Rodriguez SS
Moore P