MVN - Most Valuable Network

Rays Run Themselves Out of Victory

“We didn’t really run the bases well, and it came back to bite us”–B.J. Upton on the Rays game

Eight Runs and 18 hits should be enough to win the game. I say should, because it didn’t happen for the Rays. About a half dozen baserunning errors, shakey starting pitching, and other mental lapses put a hold on the Rays comeback attempt as they dropped the game 9-8 to the Cardinals in 10 innings.  The Rays are now 25-18 and still lead the AL East by percentage points.

Matt Garza didn’t have his best stuff today giving up six ER(seven total) on 10 hits, two walks in just 4.1 innings. Garza again relied heavily on his fastball as he did against the Yankees, but this time it didn’t work. Garza has great movement on his fastball, but is going to need to throw in his curve a little more to be successful. Dan Wheeler gave up the walk off to Ryan Ludwick in the 10th. It was Ludwick’s 2nd homer of the Day. It was the first run scored by a Rays opponent in extra innings this year.

The Rays really ran themselves out of the game. They were caught stealing three times, picked off once and had a baserunner thrown out at 3rd from the outfield. The aggressive play really cost the Rays and kept them from tacking on more runs.  B.J Upton was a central figure in a few of the miscues, including a CS and being thrown out at 3rd. Upton also seemed to hurt himself trying to rob Ludwick’s walk off homer, but said he was fine after the game.

There were some positives for the Rays. For one, 18 hits is the most by the Rays all season. They also came back to tie the game at 8-8 after being down 7-3 and then 8-4  thanks mostly to a three run shot by Carlos Pena. As expected there were plenty of box score notes to go around

Inside the Box Score:

• Jason Bartlett: 4-5, 2 runs scored, 6 out of last 9,  .345 Avg last 15 gms

• Carl Crawford: 3-5, 2 runs scored, 2nd in the AL in runs scored(31)

• B.J. Upton: 3-5, 2 runs scored, 10th in the AL with 26 RBI

• Evan Longoria: 2-4, 2 RBI, 1st time in career with back to back multi hit games. He is 2nd in the AL in RBI’s by a rookie(17)

• Dioner Navarro: 2-5, Leads AL catchers in Avg.(.373 min 80 AB)

• Al Reyes 2 IP, O H, O BB, has not allowed a base runner in last 2 games

• Dan Wheeler(L, O-3), 3 losses tied for most in AL by reliever. 1.61 ERA

Tommy’s Take: Today was a perfect example of “you can’t win’em all.” The Rays pounded the cards pitchers, but couldn’t get enough runs across the plate. The team had 10 LOB and screwed themselves out of five more with baserunning errors. Jason Bartlett also made a big error that led to an unearned run for Garza.

Speaking of Garza, he’s going to need to rely on his secondary pitches. When your curveball is a plus pitch you need to use it, please. He’s been more than a little fastball reliant lately, click for the numbers ran by R.J. Anderson.  He also got a bit of bad luck when a 2-1 pitch was called a ball instead of a strike with the bases loaded. He walked in a run on the next pitch. The ball looked like a strike to me.

B.J. has had a tough season on the basepaths. He’s been called out numerous times trying to steal third base. Today was a perfect example with a caught stealing at 3rd and being throw out by Skip Shumaker at 3rd. Maybe he needs to re-think stealing/taking the extra base at 3rd or work with CC on his technique because what he’s doing now isn’t working and it’s hurting the team. I’m still holding hope for 30/30, but at this rate its starting to look like it’s not happening this year.

Again, there were a few positives in this game. Last year if this team would’ve gotten down 7-3, 8-4 it would’ve been lights out see ya tomorrow, but this team battled back, tied the game and put themselves in a position to win. It was also good to see Carlos get that homerun to CF and hopefully jump start his bat a little more.  Can’t say enough about Dioner Navarro’s hitting. Since the 2007 all star break he’s hitting .312, second best among AL catchers.

Erik’s Take:  This was a tough loss.  Coming back from being down four runs only to lose in the worst way possible is heart breaking.  I was talking to Tommy and we were talking about how different it feels if the Rays lose a game now.  We have the “Oh well, it’s no big deal, they’ll just win tomorrow” attitude, that we’ve never had in any prior season.  It’s a good feeling

It was a slightly happy birthday for Carlos Pena.  He hit the big home run in the 7th, but i’m sure the loss stung.  Tommy touched on the base running mistakes, so I won’t go to much into it.  Upton did appear to be safe on his steal of third, but when the throw beats you there by that much the umpire is probably going to call you out anyway.  It’s good to see Bartlett starting to hit well.  He’s probably the team’s best base runner so getting him on base is important.  The Rays need to come out today and get hot early and not dwell on last nights loss.  Hopefully they can beat Kyle Loshe, who hasn’t been sharp in his past couple of outings.

Rays Next Game:

Edwin Jackson(2-3, 3.47 ERA) puts his 15 inning scoreless streak on the line against the Cards and Kyle Lohse(3-2, 4.91 ERA). Jackson has gone at least seven IP and allowed one run or less in three of his last four starts, but has 0 wins to show for it.

OPS Notebook:

• The Rays are now 9-10 on the road and 16-8 at home.

• The unearned run scored by the Cardinals was the first unearned given up by the Rays since May 4th.

• The loss by Dan Wheeler was the first loss by the bullpen since April 16th against Minnesota. That game was also lost by Wheeler.

• It was also only the 3rd loss by the Rays when they have out hit their opponent.

• Hat tip to Rays Index for finding this article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about Delmon Young titled “Muscular singles hitter is not what we had in mind.” My favorite part of the article

Remember Twins fans complaining about Punto last season? Well, Punto had a slugging percentage of .347 in 2007, 51 points higher than Young’s this year. Arizona pitcher Micah Owings’ slugging percentage this year is .556, almost twice Young’s.

This is beyond alarming. This is approaching pathetic.

• From Friday when I was out, Jim Callis has the Rays taking SS Tim Beckham in Baseball America’s 1st mock draft.
• Also we’d like a chance to thank our readers for their loyalty and readership. Accoring to the latest striketwo.net blog rankings Outs Per Swing is #31. Congrats to Rays Index and Draysbay for coming in the top 20.  We thank you all for the support we’ve gotten in the brief time we’ve been here.

 

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 10:35 am and is filed under MVN Rays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.