June 6, 2008
HIGH-LITES:
The Rays bounced back nicely from the debacle that was the BoSox series. After a shaky start offensively the bats warmed up in the latter half of the game.
Evan Longoria (aka Dirtbag), smashed a homer into the second deck in leftfield of Rangers Stadium. Staats made some comment in passing that he (Longoria) was 1 of only 14 players to hit one into the second deck in Texas. Dirtbag also made some great infield plays on the run to get a couple tough outs at first (one of which was headed right for ol' Noodle-Arm Bartlett who was already camped out waiting for the ball and never would've had time to make the play at first had Evan not come to his rescue- from the looks of it, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find that management told Bartlett to let Dirtbag cover as much ground as possible). The Kid's
got a cannon!
Scott Kazmir pitched another gem. Kaz did exactly what the Rays needed, and that was to go out there with a solid performance and eat up innings so as not to use up the already tired 'pen.
Kid K went 8 innings giving up 6 hits, 2 earned runs, and recording 6 K's with no walks. He also recorded a pick-off when he caught Murphy trying to steal 2nd (although it was very close to being a balk, it was a great move).
The Rays, as a team, only struck out 5 times as opposed to 9 the night before.
LOW-LITES:
Al Reyes looked old, and used up. He came in in the 9th as the closer and proceeded to give up 2 runs on 2 hits while recording just one K. I understand that the Rays effectively had the game in the bag, so there robably wasn't a lot adrenaline involved, but he looked as if he was already on his last leg and its only the beginning of June.
No bench-clearing brawl... ah, shucks!
Gabe Gross went 2 for 5 with a double, but still looked uncomfortable at the plate (being a huge GG fan, i feel like a Dad who holds his kids to a higher standard... come on Gabe, make Daddy proud).
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3 comments:
Is anyone out there?
did i miss the rapture?
am i pissing into the wind, here?
Welcome to the wonderful world of professional baseball writing.
Looking good so far, but lay off mi hermano Al Reyes. He did not come in as the closer -- he came in with a 10-run lead in the 9th. That's not a save situation, that's mopup duty. I wouldn't want him going more than halfspeed in that situation. In a 12-4 win, it's ok to just say there were no lowlites.
I suppose you're right, I was reaching for something to complain about.
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