Wow – nice turn around from the previous evening! Rays SP Scott Kazmir was awesome on the mound! Kaz had a shaky first inning but came out firing in the 2nd inning and through the rest of his 6 complete innings of work. In the first he got ahead of a few batters then looked like he was pecking away at the corners rather than going after them. He lost them and issued free passes. He recovered to end the first inning unscathed. He come out in the 2nd inning and looking much more aggressive and confident. In his 6 innings he only allowed 5 hits, 1 ER and 4 K’s while allowing 3 free passes (2 in the first inning). Kaz had a lot of late movement on his pitches and was using his breaking ball to off set his fast ball! His pitch speed was varying from 92 down to 78. He locked the knees of many Red Sox hitters. Kaz was the difference in this game – period!
The offense had a nice day at the dish as well. Nice to see the first home runs of the season by Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria! Carlos went dead center with his monster blast and Evan went down to drive his shot over the Green Monster.
Here is the play of the game, a patent Maddon safety squeeze! This took a few guys executing perfectly for this exciting play to work. Gabe Kapler led off with a walk. Next to the dish, Akinori Iwamura. With Kapler running Aki slapped a single into the vacated #6 hole allowing Kapler to head to 3rd. That was a nice piece of opposite field hitting! Jason Bartlett, probably the best bat handler on the team, then laid down a beautiful bunt to the first base side allowing Kapler to score form 3rd. These 3 guys executed everything perfectly in this entire sequence – it was beautiful!
I love this “NL” style of play – love to see the Rays burning up the base paths and laying down the safety squeeze – outstanding!
Aside from Kaz being the star of the game let me mention someone else who was quietly impressive in my mind, Gabe Kapler. Gabe didn’t tear the cover off the ball, hit a HR, steal a base but he had a very nice game both offensively and defensively. At the dish he was 1 for 3 with a run scored and a free pass. He was the lead cog in the wheel that manufactured the run on the safety squeeze. Defensively he played CF. He made a few nice running catches on balls that were hit well over his head and to me that was most impressive. I watched him just turn around and sprint for the fence then make a difficult play look easy. He also had an assist by throwing out Youkilis at 2nd base. Nice job Gabe!
The Ray bullpen was outstanding expect for a little hiccup from JP Howell. Grant Balfour earned the save by being an intense beast on the mound. In the 9th inning he threw 10 pitches -9 were fast balls. He was pacing all around talking to himself – it was awesome!
Good to see the Rays play with some intensity and desire. They wanted this game and it was obvious. Today the Rays send the always hyper, intense Matt Garza to toe the rubber. Matt will probably be hurdling the ball at about 200mph the first inning he’ll be so pumped! Cannot wait until game time!
