WOW – nice game! The Rays managed a split with the Oakland A’s Thursday night riding the clutch bats of Ben Zobrist, Dioner Navarro and Carl Crawford. With the Rays down 5-3 in the bottom of the 9th (thanks BP!) Zorilla got the call off the bench with a man on first. Zorilla vaulted a 1-1 pitch into the RF seats to tie the game for the Rays and save the bull pen! Dioner Navarro followed the Ben Zobrist show to the dish and spanked a ground rule double down the RF line. After a BJ Upton walk Carl Crawford stepped up with the winning run 180 feet away. CC drilled a liner right over the head of the pitcher to CF scoring Navi and sealing the walk off victory. WOW – what a nice come back! Zobi has really turned himself into a valuable member of this team. When he first got here a few years back I honestly did not see him lasting long. He couldn’t hit and his fielding was marginal. Now he IS the definition of “super utility man”! Congratulations Zorilla – your hard work is evident and has made a lot of us fans!
SP Matt Garza had another nice outing but unfortunately was left with a “no decision”. Garza went 6 2/3 scattering 7 hits, 4 free passes and 2 ER while striking out 8. Great K/BB ratio but would really like to see Matt cut down the walks. Although I will say the umpiring overall has been poor behind the plate this series. A few of these guys made pitches that were perfect, I mean absolutely perfect, and the ump failed to make the call.
The bull pen failed once again after a great starting pitching performance. In 2 1/3 innings pitched the Ray bullpen gave up 5 hits and 3 ER. This bullpen seems to have 2 rotations going: Shouse, Wheeler, Percival and Cormier, Balfour, Howell. The other RP are thrown in when/where needed. The combo of Cormier, Balfour and Howell has been overall much more effective as evidenced by an average ERA of 3.17 as compared to 5.17 for Shouse, Wheeler and Percival. Not sure if the Rays planned the combinations like this intentionally but maybe they should consider re-evaluating.
Aside from the already mentioned offensive performances Jason Bartlett banged out his career high 6th HR! Nice power display this year JB! Keep it going!
The Rays ended this home stand with “WOW”! That is the component that’s been missing this season. There is no “WOW” or excitement. Some days they just seem like they’re grinding out another 9 innings. I know they want to win but it doesn’t show on their faces like it did last year. The hunger, the desire, the big magic….
Hopefully last night’s big walk off victory will send the Rays on their 7 game road trip on a magical high and they’ll start to remember what it felt like last year.
See you in Miami!
