The Rays beat the Pittsburgh Pirates on a sunny day in Bradenton, by a score of 2-1. With today’s win, Tampa Bay was finally able to get over the three win hump to bring their record to 4-9-3 on the spring. The 3-9-3 start is their third worst through 15 spring training games, having been 1-14 in 2007 and 3-11-1 in 2003.
The big story of the game was, again, James Shields. “Gran Juego” pitched for six innings (he was only scheduled to pitch five), and gave up only one run on four hits, with no walks and seven strikeouts. Though he started the game on shaky ground, by giving up a double to McLouth and an infield single to Walker, Shields was able to get out of the inning and limit the amount of pitches he threw to only 15. Shields was on Cruise control from that point on, finding his only big mistake of the day coming in the top of the sixth, when he gave up a solo home-run to Andrew McCutchen.
McGee, Gomes, and Reid followed Shields and, collectively, gave up two hits in the seventh and eighth innings, while striking out three and walking none. Two of those K’s were thrown by Reid.
Unfortunately the fireworks at the plate were few and far in between. It was nice, however, to see some of the bats that count come to life. Luke Scott had a good day, going 2-3 with a run scored and an RBI off of his first home-run of the spring. Scott also hit a single to start the day off, and advanced to second on a one out walk to Matt Joyce. In true Rays form though, they weren’t able to capitalize on an early scoring threat with Pena grounding out and Jeff Keppinger popping out to end the inning.
Pena redeemed himself in the sixth, with a blast that fell just short of a home run. The hit ended up being a triple. Damn wind in Bradenton, I tells ya! Pena would ultimately score the winning run a few moments later on a wild pitch to Sam Fuld. In the end, Tampa Bay left eight men on the base-paths today.
With the middle of spring training just around the bend, I’m starting to get a bit nervous about the offensive performance of the Rays. The fact of the matter is that neither Pena, Scott, Upton, or Longoria have had stellar at bats so far, 16 games into the spring. If these are the big guns…if these are the players that are projected to carry the Rays to 93 wins in 2012, someone like Carlos Pena finally getting his first hit of the spring today, is a bit worrisome to say the least.
I’m also a bit uneasy with the number of runs the Rays have given up thus far. Tampa Bay is a pitching and defensive team, yet you’d never know it with the amount of runs that Davis, Niemann, and Price have given up in their last outings. One could imagine that being part of the reason Maddon is giving a few of the pitchers like Peralta, Rodney, Howell, Badenhop, and Price the opportunity to eat up a few more innings by pitching in minor league games.
Yes, I do like hearing comments from Niemann and Davis, about them feeling good after their outings, even when the line may not be representative of how they feel. Conversely though, health alone does not win games; health plus good outings does. Nevertheless, a win is a win is a win, and I’ll gladly take it.