The Tampa Bay Rays lost their composure on the field and a game in the standings by giving away game 1 to the New York Yankees. They made costly mistakes on both sides of the ball.
SP Matt Garza clearly showed his frustration on the mound by throwing the rosin bag down several times through out his 5 innings of work. He was clearly irritated at the miniscule strike zone that Rays arch nemesis, Umpire Brian Runge, was calling. Garza was stellar the first 3 innings of the game then it all began to unravel in the 4th and 5th innings. Garza committed an error by throwing a ball far beyond the reach of Carlos Pena and gave up a 2 run blast to Xavier Nady. A dropped ball by Jason Bartlett that would have been an easy caught stealing on Derek Jeter led to another run. The frustration was evident on Garza as he allowed 6 runs (4 ER) in his 5 innings of work.
The offense did not back Garza’s cause either. An uncharacteristic lack of fundamental play by Eric Hinske cost the Rays 2 runs early. With Willy Aybar standing on first Hinske blasted a line drive to the LC gap off the top of the wall. Hinske put his head down and ran all the way to third. Problem was Ray’s 3rd base coach, Tom Foley, held up Aybar at 3rd. Aybar was then forced off 3rd by Hinske and thrown out at the plate. On the next play Bartlett hit a fairly soft grounder that Rodriguez had to travel to the hold to his left. Hinske not breaking on contact did not score.
The Rays out hit the Yankees 12 – 9 but stranded 10 on base. The offense gave up a lot of free outs to the Yankees by way of 11 strike outs, 8 by our top 3 in the lineup. The Rays definitely had opportunities to advance runners and score runs but failed.
This game was uncharacteristic for the Rays on all sides. The best thing about this game for the Rays is the OUTSTANDING catch BJ Upton made off the wall in deep CF. No one in The Trop thought he was going to catch up to that ball. It was one of the best catches ever!
Today is a new day! The Rays beat themselves up for about 30 minutes after the game and are now focused on today’s game. That’s one of the great things about this team. They understand bad games will happen and move forward. Tonight should be a total turn around for our Rays!
Go Rays!!
