Let’s be honest here, no one thought the Tampa Bay Rays would return home with a perfect, 5-0 road trip record. 3-2 or 4-1, sure. 5-0? Not in the least. Low and behold however, the Rays shutout the St. Louis Cardinals 3-0 last night, closing out their most successful road trip to date. Winners of seven straight, the Rays ended the night 7.0 out of first in the AL East, 4.5 out in the Wildcard race, and 1.5 ahead of the Red Sox who will enter The Trop Friday, for a three game set.
Tag Archives: Jeremy Hellickson
Rays 7/22/14 Starting Lineup, Etc
Rays 7/22/14 Starting Lineup
Jennings CF
Zobrist 2B
Joyce LF
Longoria 3B
Loney 1B
Escobar SS
Molina C
Odorizzi RHP
Kiermaier RF
Looking Backward While Moving forward: Kiermaier and Odorizzi Lead the Rays to 10-3 Win
The Tampa Bay Rays once again found themselves with a tally in the win column, after they blasted the Toronto Blue Jays by a score of 10-3, Saturday. Led by Kevin Kiermaier’s hitting and Jake Odorizzi’s solid pitching, the Rays reclaimed fourth place from the Red Sox (who lost to Houston), and start the day just 5-1/2 games behind the third place New York Yankees. Odorizzi got the start in place of scheduled starter David Price, who was feeling ill. Price will take the mound this afternoon, opposite of RA Dickey, in series finale.
Looking Backward While Moving Forward: Rays Rally to 4-3 Win
Think back to last weekend, when Tampa Bay was crushed by Max Scherzer and the Detroit Tigers. There was a tacit line of thought that the Rays would need to prove they could bounce back from the loss, if they were going to make a realistic push going forward. They inevitably took three consecutive games, and the series, from the Tigers. And similar to last week, the Rays were able to bounce back from a tough loss, taking the second game of the series from the Royals by a score of 4-3. It was a gritty victory against a very tough Jason Vargas, but Tampa Bay, led Brandon Guyer and Brad Boxberger, proved its mettle Tuesday night.
Looking Backward While Moving Forward: Shields, Royals Blank Rays, 6-0
I tried bargaining with the baseball gods, ahead of the series opener last night. My bargain: Allow Tampa Bay to win a close game, and let James Shields to walk away from The Trop with a quality seven inning, no-decision under his belt. The plan seemed like a win/win to me. However, neither the baseball gods nor James Shields accepted my very reasonable bargain. In the end, despite the very good start by Jake Odorizzi, Big Game James was downright dominant in his seven inning homecoming, slashing 7 IP/3 H/0 R/1 BB/10 K on 103 pitches (64 strikes). Truth be told, with a pair of winnable games remaining in the series, I’m not that broken up over the loss — well, with the exception of Juan-Carlos Oviedo’s fart-on-a-snare-drum worthy two innings of work.