SP Matt Garza rebounded from his last terrible outing by pitching 8 innings of 1 ER baseball to allow the Rays to even the 3 game set at 1 game each. Garza was awesome tonight! He did run into trouble in the 4th by walking the bases loaded but regained his form and got out of the inning with 0 runs scored. Garza allowed only 3 hits in 8 innings while striking out 7. This was absolutely his best performance in a few games. If it had not been for the quantity of pitches he threw in the 4th inning he could have easily closed out the game with under 100 pitches. The home run bug was the only negative on his stellar performance. He allowed a HR to Werth that accounted for the only Phillies scoring of the night. The pitch Werth hit was not a bad pitch. It was clearly on the edge of the outside corner but it was right at belt level. Garza, along with the rest of the Rays pitching staff, really need to focus on keeping the pitch down as well as away.
Pat Burrell really provided the only scoring the Rays would need considering the outstanding job done by Garza. Burrell connected off his former teammate to blast his 2nd HR of the season and driving in 2 runs. Burrell ended the night with 3 RBIs total which is what we signed him to do. Hopefully this starts the turn around at the dish for Pat.
Base running was a bit of an issue for me in this game. Both Carl Crawford and BJ Upton made a decision after they hit balls to the outfield that they were out. They started jogging up the line and watched as both baseballs fell to the turf. Then they turned on the afterburners. CC was thrown out at 3B when he would have gone in standing easily had he been running out of the box. BJ was safe at 2B on a close play that should have never been close. Come one now guys, let’s not start this laziness! BJ made another costly base running mistake tagging from 3B on a short fly to LF and was gunned at the dish. Bad move BJ! You have the middle of the order coming up with only 1 out – you cost the team a run! Be smart guys, be smart!
The opposite side of this was the hustle by Ben Zobrist in the 8th inning on a ground ball to SS J-Roll. Zobrist was burning from the time the ball hit the bat and was safe at 2B. This was awesome to watch! The Rays ended up scoring 5 runs in the bottom of the 8th.
All in all, good game. A few mistakes to learn from here and there – I never want to see this base running BS again! The rubber game of the set sends SP Andy Sonnanstine to the mound for the Rays. This should be an interesting start for Sonny as he knows he is on the bubble of wearing a Durham Bull’s uni again with the impending return of Scott Kazmir. Sonny should come out as determined as ever to have a great outing. I’ll be there to cheer him and the Rays on to the series victory!
