Another day, another do or die situation. Nothing new though, right? Those of us with even slightly regular heart rhythms can now fully relate to those of you with arrhythmic palpitations. For better or worse, the Rays have been in this situation many o’ times this season, so it’s really nothing new. But I’d really love to know what it is like to sail through games, or at least more than one time in a series, cough Friday.
Last night we were faced with the same old same: an offense that’s incapable of driving runners home in scoring position, an offense that leans all to often on the long-ball to make up for that lack of offense, and a crew of middle relief pitchers that can’t seem to keep games close. To that end, for the life of me I cannot figure out how a team with a .402 slugging average could make Colby “Mr. 4.99 lifetime ERA, and 4.40 2011 ERA” Lewis look like he’s Cy Young incarnate.
Lewis must have put some kind of pixie dust on his fastball. Somehow, in some way, he made his 84-85 MPH fastball look like a 98 MPH Neftali Feliz fastball. Pounding the strikezone with fastballs, curveballs, and sliders, Lewis made the Rays hitters, if I may be so brash, look foolish. Lewis gave up one hit, a Desmond Jennings blast to LF, in his six inning tenure and induced ground out after ground out, and pop out after pop out. Dare I say that had he gotten through the first inning with a lower pitch count, Lewis easily could have gone into the eighth?
On the other side of the coin, David Price took the mound in an attempt to atone for his sins against the Rays in his September 28th start against the Yankees. Price gave a valiant effort to keep the Rays in the game, however fell on the losing end of the stick. There were a few things that struck me as very un-Price like, but were good nonetheless. David came into the game with a different plan of attack. You’d better believe that the Rangers came into the game prepared. As mentioned here on a few occasions, the Rangers eat fastballs and crap home runs on a daily basis. Price, instead of going for K after K, pitched to contact; put the ball in play, if you will, and let the Rays fielders take care of it. By lowering the velocity of his fastball, averaging somewhere of the 92-95 MPH zone, and painting the outside corners of the plate, Price was able to give up only six hits, including an unfortunate two run blast to center by Mike Napoli, and a walk over the course of six innings of work. Price also peppered in a very good cutter used quite effectively. Had the Rays been able to back up their ace with some actual run support, I think they’d have undoubtedly won the game. Then again, lack of run support wasn’t the only thing that blew the game for our boys. More on that after Price’s strikezone plots.
Down 2-1, the Rest of the story came in the seventh inning after Joe Maddon chose to pull David Price from the game. With one on and two outs, Maddon chose to relieve Price with Brandon Gomes to get the final out. Gomes, however, walked Ian Kinsler and was quickly pulled in lieu of JP Howell to face Josh Hamilton. Howell, who historically has had great success against Josh Hamilton seemed to be the logical choice to put into the game. Yet, Howell has allowed games to be blown open in his last two high leverage appearances, and the outcome of his appearance last night would be no different.
I have contended all along, that Howell should only be placed in the game in low leverage situations. Joe can read the splits as well as anyone, however Howell’s successful pitching history is well in the past now, and I’m not certain if those splits against Josh Hamilton should have come into play over gut instincts…especially with two men in scoring position. Nevertheless, JP was put on the bump. And after two sliders, one left hanging over the meat of the plate, the Rays found themselves three runs down after a Josh Hamilton two run single to right. Cruz came in to mop up Howell’s mess and get the Rays out of the inning.
Tampa Bay had runners in scoring position in the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings, yet could only convert two of those runners into runs. One of those runs came off of the bat of Desmond Jennings who ended the night with two dingers. If they are to win today, they will need to score early and frequently off of Matt Harrison.
Harrison (1-0, 1.29 ERA career vs. Tampa Bay), like Colby Lewis, too has a 4+ ERA. However, a high ERA doesn’t necessitate an easy task on the Rays part, just see last night for example. The Rays definitely have a chance to stave off runs with Hellboy on the mound. Hellickson has gone deep into games this season, and will need to do so today in order to avoid the middle of the Rays relief rotation. In any case, it’s incumbent on the Rays to jump-start the offense if they’re to be in Arlington on Thursday. Lineups below. As always, Go Rays!
Tampa Bay (1-2, 2011 post-season play)
Jennings LF
Upton CF
Longoria 3B
Zobrist 2B
Damon DH
Shoppach C
Rodriguez SS
Kotchman 1B
Joyce RF
Hellickson P
Texas Rangers (2-1, 2011 post-season play)
Kinsler 2B
Andrus SS
Hamilton CF
Young DH
Beltre 3B
Napoli C
Cruz RF
Murphy LF
Moreland 1B
Harrison P