On a cool and rainy night in Boston, our beloved Tampa Bay Rays took game one of their current four game set against the Red Sox, 9-2. It’s still inexplicable to me how the Rays can be beaten by the Orioles, only accumulating four runs in the course of two games, then shellac the Red Sox the following night. It is what it is I suppose, and history is, as they say, history. I can only hope that the Rays air on the side of last nights game as opposed to the two prior games. The Rays are again 3.0 games back in the wildcard race and again, seem to be surging. Oy vey, to think that they’d be 1.5 or two games out had they beaten the Orioles…that’s why I’m trying not to think about it!
The Rays didn’t look too hot at the plate in the first two innings. Weiland retired the first six Rays hitters in order, and the lingering pains of the Orioles series began to creep into this humble bloggers consciousness. In the third inning though, any Cy Young pitching performances by young Weiland went the way of the buffalo as the Rays hit Boston hard, scoring four runs and opening the flood gates for the sixth and seventh innings to come.
With the game knotted up at nothing, BJ Upton came to the plate with runners on first and second, and two outs. Upton hit a weak broken-bat single toward the shortstop. The ball was accompanied by the remaining piece of Upton’s bat as they both made their way toward Marco Scuturo, who missed the ball while trying to avoid the bat. A run scored on the play. The Rays scored three more runs in the very next at bat when Evan Longoria homered to right center. Granted a little bit of luck found the Rays scoring four runs instead of grounding out in the inning, I’ll take luck over no runs any day of the week!
A similar type of luck put Boston in a position to do some major damage in the top of the third, but Boston was not able to do anything but score a run. With two men on base, Hellickson “walked” Dustin Pedrioa on a full count “ball” to load the bases. I say “walked” and “ball” because Hellickson’s pitch was clearly a strike. In the end though, the Red Sox were only able to score that one run in the inning, on a not-so sharply hit ball to first by Adrian Gonzalez for the second out. After an intentional walk to Ortiz to again load the bases, Hellickson was able to get Kevin Youkilis to ground out to third to end the inning. Hellickson was able to hold the Red Sox to one run on three hits when he was taken out of the game with two outs in the sixth. Jake McGee, in relief, was able to get Crawford to ground out to third to end the inning.
The Rays were able to tack on five more runs on a two run dinger by Casey Kotchman also scoring Damon in the top of the sixth, a two run blast over the monstah by Upton also scoring Desmond Jennings, and a one run single by Casey Kotchman scoring Ben Zobrist in the top of the top of the seventh. Cesar Ramos, Juan Cruz, and Alex Torres followed Hellickson and McGee’s lead to lock down the Rays victory.
The Rays will play game two tonight at 7:05. James Shields (15-10, 2.70 ERA) will take on the Red Sox ace Josh Beckett (12-5, 2.49 ERA) in a fairly evenly keeled pitching match-up. I think the Rays need to approach Beckett in the same manner as they did on Saturday against Lester: hit him early, and hit him hard! Fingers crossed that the Rays will be able to end the evening 2.0 games in back of Boston and 1.0 games plus ahead of the Angels. Starting lineup’s to come later. As always, Go Rays!