Matt Moore pitching in the first inning of the April 10, 2012 game against the Tigers.

The number one and two power ranked teams in baseball took the field in game one of a three game set, today in Detroit. The Tigers took game one on a snowy day at Comerica Field, 5-2.

Both Matt Moore and Rick Porcello pitched well enough to find both teams struggling to knock in runs up until the eighth inning, when the bottom fell out on the Rays bullpen.

Matt Moore went 6-2/3 innings and gave up two runs (both earned) on four hits and five walks, striking out four along the way. He didn’t pitch horribly, yet her certainly wasn’t the two hit, 12 K Matt Moore that we saw in game one of the 2011 ALDS. Nevertheless, it was a decent place to start and was undoubtedly better than James Shields first start of the 2012 season.

Moore had great velocity, especially considering the cold weather conditions. His fastball sat around 93 MPH and topped out at 95 MPH, yet he only had a 55% strike percentage on the day. Is this a reason to be worried? In a word, no. DRaysBay wrote a nice piece on Matt Moore getting off to a slow start in April. You can read that here. In short, I’ll gladly take this start by Matt Moore considering that things will only get better as the season progresses.

Moore was taken out two outs into the seventh inning after a questionable two strike call by home plate umpire Ed Rapuano, that preceded a blast to left-field by Austin Jackson that would tie the game up at two a piece. LHP Jake McGee came in relief of Moore, and got Boesch to line to left-field to end the inning. McGee came back in the eighth to face Miguel Cabrera.

Cabrera ultimately doubled off of McGee, after yet another botched call by Rapuano. You can see that pitch number four in the Pitch F/X graph (below) was clearly a strike, yet was called a ball by Rapuano. If it was called a strike, Cabrera would have been dead to rites. Unfortunately though, that pitch preceded a double by Cabrera which would set up a three run eighth. The Rays would never recover. In my opinion, knowing that Fielder has a hard time with lefties and curve balls, Maddon should have brought in JP Howell in to face Fielder. Yet he didn’t, and Fielder hit a single off of Badenhop to drive in Cabrera and the winning run. The Tigers drove in two more runs in the eighth, and then blah blah blah, Valverde, save, yadayadayada…you know the drill.

Pitch number four was called a ball by home plate umpire, Ed Rapuano. Cabrera would have been dead to rites had the ball been called a strike.

The Rays had kind of a blah day at the plate. The good: the had eight hits, including hits by Desmond Jennings, Evan Longoria, Carlos Pena and Ben Zobrist. That is to say, the bats that should be hitting are. The bad: they were only able to drive in two runs, get one extra base hit, and they stranded six on the base paths.

In the end, tomorrow is another day. Yet, the task at hand will be no easier as 2011 AL MVP, Justin Verlander, takes the hill following his first start of the season against the Red Sox, where he gave up no runs on only two hits in eight innings of work. Look at the bright side: the Rays batters are seeing the ball well, and at least it’ll be warmer out.

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