Game Recap: Good Garza !!

June 26, 2008

RAYS: 6
Marlins: 1

HIGH-LITES:

Matt Garza pitched an awesome game this afternoon. As a matter of a fact, he pitched as close to a no-no as you can get; striking out 10, facing 1 over the minimum, and allowing just 1 hit (a solo HR by Ramirez in the 7th). This is the type of game that convinces me that if Garza can stay out of his own head he can be just as good as Kaz before all is said and done. Muy Impressivo

Longoria (AKA Dirtbag) had another great day offensively going 3 for 5 with 2 doubles and a homer. The way the ball jumps off of his bat is unreal. I firmly believe he will lead the team in homers by the end of the year.

Upton's patience at the plate. I've been bustin' BJ's chops a bit lately about being lazy, but his good eye at the plate is paying dividends (or maybe he's just too lazy to swing the bat...).

Homers by Longoria and Zobrist and a near grand slam by Riggans showed another glimpse of the offensive potential that the Rays are yet to live up to so far this year. Hopefully this series was the offense's coming-out party. We'll see when we face Boston next week at The Trop.

LOW-LITES:

10 runners left on base.

The Prof over at Rays Index jinxed Garza by mentioning the NY Mets during his Live Blog-A-Baloo and cost him the no-no!

Game Recap: Garza! Garza! Garza!

JUNE 2, 2008

RAYS: 4

Red Sox: 7

HIGH-LITES:

Aki started the game off with a homer on the 3rd pitch of the night giving the Rays the start they needed.

Pena also homered, blasting a 2-run dinger as high as it was long, over the rightfield wall, and giving the Rays a 4-3 lead in the 6th.

The bullpen was solid again last night, giving the Rays a chance to comeback. Glover worked 2 innings, giving up 1 hit and striking out 1. While Balfour worked 2/3 giving up 1 walk and also recording 1 K.

LOW-LIGHTS:

Matt Garza did his best Edwin Jackson impression last night. He ran into a buzz-saw line-up in Boston and couldn't find the plate... that's a deadly combination. For anyone who saw the game it was easy to see very early on that Garza wasn't going to have his best stuff last night.

Jason Bartlett, who played nearly flawless baseball in May, made a huge mistake in the sixth when a softly hit grounder took a short hop and tied him up- what should've been at the very least one out, and quite possibly could've been a double play ended up turning into nothing, and giving Boston bases loaded with no outs. Boston went on to score 4, and never looked back.

Gabe Gross (who I'm a huge proponent of) struggled mightily at the plate, managing to strike out 3 times. Gross, who hasn't gotten many chances to start in RF (given the Rays stack-up at that position), has to do a better job offensively if he wants to secure his job.

In the 8th, trailing by 3, the Rays had 2-on with no outs and were unable to produce even 1 run. In an important game against a division rival you've got to be able to take advantage of scoring opportunities. In total the Rays stranded 8.
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