The Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox hooked up for game 1 of the ALCS at The Trop Friday night. It was a magical atmosphere in the dome but the Rays offense was vanquished by Dice-K Matsuzaka. This game was one of the premier pitching match ups of the season. James Shields toed the rubber for the Rays in an effort to get an early jump on the BoSox.
Dice-K ran into trouble several times through out his 7+ innings of work but always managed to work himself out of it. Notably in the first inning Dice-K walked the bases loaded and then managed to get Cliff Floyd to roll over and hit a lazy ground ball for the third out keeping the Rays off the board early. In the 7th inning the Rays Carl Crawford managed the first Ray hit of the game, yes that’s right the first hit in the 7th inning, and went to 3rd on a Floyd single. Now with, at that point, the tying run on third with 0 out the Rays could not even manage a long fly ball to score the run.
The Rays made the BoSox pitching staff’s jobs a bit easier by swinging on counts of 3-0 and 2-0 all night long and having nothing to show in return. The Rays lack of big game experience seemed to rear its ugly head in this lack of patience all night long.
Well nothing positive to note from the offensive side of the game. The Rays managed only 4 hits and 4 free passes for the game. That’s a shame as Shields pitched just as well for the Rays and deserved a better fate.
In my opinion the difference in this game was the experience factor. The Rays had opportunities to score runs multiple times but could not muster the key hit. The BoSox didn’t have many more opportunities than the Rays to score runs but they managed to be patient and, rather than swing for the fences, focused on the base hit to score the runs.
The Rays have now put themselves in an early must win situation in my opinion. They cannot go to Fenway down 2 games. That will spell doom for them. The Red Sox would have far too much momentum. If the Rays are patient at the plate they will score against Beckett. Even though his postseason numbers are incredible through his career he has struggled a bit as of late due to a rib injury. Scott Kazmir will take the mound for the Rays and he must keep the ball in the park for the Rays to have a chance. If the Red Sox get out to an early lead the momentum given to the Red Sox will be difficult to overcome. The postseason is their stage and they know that. I don’t really think the Red Sox care too much about winning or losing the division pennant. Their focus has always been to make it to the playoffs where they seem to become an entirely different team. The Rays have to squash the thought that we will lie down for them early in this game 2.
Go Rays!
