I don’t know if you’ve noticed the trend the Rays have established so far — win the first game of the series in convincing fashion then put the bats away for games 2 & 3. Although the Rays did manage to bang out 9 hits in Tuesday’s loss we went 2 for 11 with RISP. So a bunch of singles scattered through out 9 innings really doesn’t mean all that much if you cannot get the hits when you have the opportunities to score the runs.
James Shields pitched effectively for 6.2 innings giving up 3 ER, 7 hits, 4 BB and 4 K’s. Shieldsy was not on top of his game by any means but he managed to wriggle out of a few tight spots. To be honest I think that’s a true measure of a pitcher, the ability to work out of a tight spot. JP Howell ended up getting tagged for the loss after pitching 2/3 of an inning and allowing the winning run to score.
As stated earlier in this blog the Rays banged out 9 hits 4 of which were for extra bases. The big fly came off the PH HR of Ben Zobrist’s bat in the top of the 9th to tie the score. Zobi has been showing a lot of the bench and making the most of his opportunities, like to see the guy get more reps as the RF.
The Rays were aggressive on the base paths stealing 3 bags (Upton 2 & CC 1) but Carlos Pena was picked off first base for the 2nd time this season. What is going on with this getting picked off bags??? These little things will come back to haunt a team if we don’t clean this up.
The Rays close the series with the Twinkies on Tuesday and head back to The Trop. I’m sure we’ll see a much better offensive effort tonight and a series victory!
