Rays Rally to defeat Lee, Rangers
The Tampa Bay Rays are now tied for first place in the AL East as they rallied late to beat Cliff Lee and the Texas Rangers. A game which featured two of the most dominant left handers in the AL, saw the pair combine for 18 strikeouts.
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Rays-Rangers series opens with marquee pitchers duel
Tropicana Field will be buzzing tonight with the Tampa Bay Rays squaring off with the Texas Rangers and a marquee pitching matchup. David Price versus Cliff Lee, all the feeling of a playoff game. Texas enters the game with a comfortable 8.5 game lead in the AL West and appear to be cruising to a playoff berth. Tampa comes in to tonight’s game with the second best record in baseball at 71-46 and despite a rocky start in the month of August, have climbed back to only 1 game behind the New York Yankees.
The good guys will be wanting to see David Price (15-5 2.84) become the American League’s first pitcher to win 16 games this season. Tampa has been plagued with inconsistent offense in the past few weeks and facing the Rangers Cliff Lee (10-5 2.57) will be no easy task. While the Rays have already beaten Lee twice this year, he holds a 6-4 2.51 ERA lifetime against the Rays. Rays SP Price has never beaten the Rangers and holds a 0-2 9.45 ERA against Texas.
Price will need a better performance than his last outing against the Detroit Tigers. Price did record the win, but only managed to last 5 innings and was erratic at times. Texas starts out the three game series tonight, second in the majors with a team batting average of .276. Tampa will get to see former Rays prospect LF Josh Hamilton tonight. Hamilton has become the superstar that the Rays envisioned when they drafted him in the first round of 1999′s draft. Hamilton is batting .362 with 26 home runs and 80 runs driven in, that offensive production sure would look great in the Rays offense right now.
This will be the final series between the two clubs for the regular season, but there is a very good chance they could see one another in the post season. So, get you’re popcorn ready, this is going to be a great one tonight.
Rays to be Players at Trade Deadline?
In perhaps the most curious of statements, Tampa Bay Rays principal owner Stu Sternberg said that “Money will be no object” as the July 31st trade deadline looms. “We’ll do whatever, money won’t be an object”, Sternberg told reporters before the Red Sox game Tuesday night.
These are words most Rays fans aren’t accustomed to. In fact, money has always been an issue since the Rays joined MLB.
24 days in 1st Place for Tampa Bay
The Tampa Bay Rays started day 1 of the post Pat Burrell era with a close win 3-2 over the Seattle Mariners. Though Tampa has been playing at a team record pace, the rays have not been able to open up a substantial lead over the New York Yankees, although they now have occupied first place in the AL East for 24 days now.
Mariner’s lefthander Jason Vergas pitched well, and only surrendered 4 hits in 7 innings. He was highly effective, throwing many first pitch strikes needing only 36 pitches to work 4 innings. Rays P James Shields must have been having flashbacks to 2009 on the mound this afternoon. During his last outing, Shields received no run support from the Rays losing 4-0, and this afternoon through 8 strong innings, the Rays had nothing on the board. Tampa scored two in the bottom of the 8th and then Willie Aybar hit a walkoff homerun in the 9th inning to seal the victory, but despite 10 strikeouts, Shields received a no decision.
Sundays game will see Matt Garza (5-1) take the mound for the good guys and Cliff Lee (1-1) will pitch for the Mariners. Lee was roughed up 10 days ago by the Rays in a 8-3 loss. The Rays only managed 6 hits this afternoon and perhaps if there is any good news, the 5 through 8 hitters in the lineup collected 4 of those six, but the hitting is anemic currently. The starting pitching has been stellar and keeping the Rays close but Tampa needs to find a way to kick start the bats.
It was reported that Hank Blalock was in the building on Saturday, arriving shortly after the first pitch. Rays executive VP Andrew Friedman told the media that the decision to call up Blalock had nothing to do with his opt-out clause in his contract, but that the Rays were looking for a left handed bat which would fit the Rays better. Frankly anyone would fit the Rays better than the putrid production from Burrell.
On the road again……
The Tampa Bay Rays wrapped up a 6 game homestand, going 4-2. The Rays swept the Oakland A’s and managed a split with the lowly Kansas City Royals. The Royals pitching staff successfully managed to silence the red hot Rays bats, limiting them to 15 hits in the final 3 games of the four game series.
The Rays are now on a West Coast road trip that takes the Rays for 3 games in Seattle, 3 in Oakland and 3 against the Angels.
Last night Tampa Bay faced off with the Mariners for the first of a three game series and walked away with a 5-2 victory, improving the Rays road record to a staggering 10-1, the best in the majors currently.
James Shields pitched 8 strong innings for the win to improve to 4-0 with an ERA of 3.15. Manager Joe Maddon decided to tinker a bit with the strarting lineup with Jason Barlett and B.J. Upton sitting. Ben Zobrist started in CF and Reid Brignac was at SS while Sean Rodriguez played 2B.
3B Evan Longoria continued his torrid hitting streak, going 3 for 4 with 2 runs scored, 1 walk and 1 RBI. Evan also smacked his 7th homerun of the season with a 400 foot blast to left field. Longoria is batting .500 over the past 7 days, going 12-24, scoring 8 runs, 4 homeruns, and 6 RBI’s.
It’s a good thing Longoria is getting hot, because 1B Carlos Pena has cooled off drastically. Pena, in his last 6 games has only 3 hits in 24 at bats, an average of .125.
Tonight’s game will see Matt Garza square off against Mariner’s Cliff Lee. Lee missed the first month of the season with an abdominal injury and made his first start for 2010 last week against the Texas Rangers. Lee pitched well, but received a no decision. Lee was the AL Cy Young award winner in 2008.
April re-cap for the Rays coming later this afternoon.
