Ahhhh, smell the hotdogs steaming, the stench of stale beer, hear the roar of the crowd – YES! Baseball is Back! Welcome to 2009 baseball fans!
But, alas it isn’t all good for Ray fans. Most of you know the title of this blog is typically synonymous with real estate but in this case we’ll use it to discuss the difficulties our opening day pitcher faced against the red Sox. Big game James Shields took to the mound with the hope of Rays Republic riding on his shoulders. Well, ok maybe a bit dramatic but you get the picture. The outcome was less than ideal as Shieldsy went only 5.1 innings giving up 9 hits, 3 free passes, 2 HR and 5 ER to ultimately end up as the losing pitcher. James wasn’t able to maintain his location on his pitches and the Red Sox hitters took advantage of every mistake.
The Ray offense was absolutely shut down by Beckett. In 7 innings he garnered 10 strike outs – 4 from Carlos Pena alone. Beckett abused the Ray offense and the game was not nearly as close as you may think looking at the final score. The Rays managed 1 lone run off Beckett (Okajima gave up the other 2 in the 8th) and only 2 hits. He completely shut down the heart of our order – Longoria, Pena and Burrell. Between the 3 only 1 hit was to be had – that was by Longoria off Okajima.
OK so here’s my game changing moment – the inning that seemed to shut the door on the Rays. The top of the 6th Aki walks and CC goes down low to knock a nice pitcher’s pitch to the wall for a double. With no one out, runners on 2nd and 3rd, the heart of the order coming up, the score 4-1 — Rays fans are EXCITED! Longo strides up only needing to drive one to the green to tighten the game and BANG – pop up to the catcher – 1 out. Next victim – Pena – WHIFF – 2 out. Last but certainly not least — Burrell – simple 5-3 ground out. Beckett showed why he was the Red Sox opening day pitcher.
All in all – it is only 1 game, 161 more to go. I’m not looking too much into this 1 game quiet yet and hopefully you aren’t either. The Rays will bounce back tomorrow with Kazmir riding the bump.
See you at the Park (on TV of course)!
