Update:
Tampa Bay Rays 4/29/12 Starting Lineup
Jennings LF
Pena 1B
Longoria 3B
Zobrist RF
Keppinger 2B
Upton CF
Scott DH
Rodriguez SS
Gimenez C
Price LHP
I’d really like to forget last night’s abomination; the 7-2 loss at the hands of the Rangers. I will give a lukewarm hats-off to Jeff Niemann for doing a decent job in his start. Going 5-2/3 IP, Niemann gave up three runs (two earned) on five hits and two walks, while striking out four. Niemann is now 1-3 on the season.
Save for the shaky 20-plus pitch first and fourth innings, Niemann wasn’t horrible. In the end Niemann threw 101 pitches, with 63 of them for strikes. I imagine that if he had a more efficient first or fourth, he’d have gone deeper into the game. This isn’t anything new though, and I think most teams are aware that it takes the tall right-hander an inning to get going fully.
Nevertheless, Niemann kept the Rays in the game. It wasn’t until the four run seventh that a Rays victory became out of reach. In the end, it was a tale of an offense that couldn’t get going after a big first game (sound familiar?) and a pen that let the game get away.
Tampa Bay attempts to salvage things in tonight’s rubber match. David Price (3-1, 2.62 ERA) will go up against the man with the white-trash ‘stache, Derek Holland (2-1, 4.78 ERA). Price
Price is coming off of a big five hit, complete game, shutout against the Angels on the 24th. What he did against Pujols and Co. will come in handy tonight against the Rangers. That is to say, location-location-location…of his pitches. He made the Angels look the Marlins, and he has the stuff to make the Rangers look the same. The caveat: Price is 0-6 with a 5.63 ERA in nine career starts against the Rangers. The Rangers have had his number.
On the flip side, Holland is looking to bounce back after a miserable 6.0 IP/7 ER/9 H/4 BB start against the Yankees on the 23rd of April. Holland is 4-1 (regular season + post-season) in six career starts against the Rays. Don’t let the 4-1 record deceive you, Holland has been touched up by Tampa Bay.
The Rays have a .298 opponents batting average against ye old “Dutch Oven“. Holland also has a 5.79 ERA against the Rays. Those aren’t stellar numbers. In his short career, Holland has given up six home runs (total) to Ben Zobrist (1), BJ Upton (1), Evan Longoria (2), Matt Joyce (1), and Chris Gimenez (1). Zobrist, not to mention that Upton, Molina, Longoria, Keppinger, Joyce, and Gimenez all have, between, a .294 and .500 BA against Holland.
With all of this in mind, the Rays strategy will have to be two fold: A) Price will need to go into today’s game with the same plan of attack that he went into his last start, and B) The Offense will need to be firing on all cylinders at the plate, similar to two nights ago.
We’ll update this with the starting lineup when it’s released.