The Rays continued their most recent hot streak with another win over the Los Angeles Angels. Tampa Bay got a strong start out of James Shields and won their 77th game by a score of 4-2. The Rays win moves them into a tie with Cubs for the best record in baseball.
Shields went 8 innings and gave up both runs that the Angels were able to score. He gave up nine hits and struck out seven batters. The win moves his record to 11-7. Dan Wheeler came on to pitch the ninth inning and struck out two as he worked a perfect inning.
The Rays were down 2-0 heading into the sixth inning. In the sixth BJ Upton reached base on an infield single that scored a run. In the eighth inning Carlos Pena walked in a run and Wily Aybar followed that with an RBI single that scored two runs. Aybar had two of the Rays five hits.
The Rays will try to finish the sweep on tomorrow night. Matt Garza is scheduled to start on Wednesday night. Game time is 7:05pm.
August 20th, 2008 at 4:31 am
I believe we are going to look back on this game and realize that it was clear statement game for our young team. This game is classic 2008 Rays. There were so many things worth noting:
1) Stellar starting pitching: James Shields had great stuff tonight pitching 8 innings giving up only 2 runs and Dan Wheeler closed it out with a strong 9th inning.
2) Great defense: not only were there no errors by the Rays, but Gabe Gross made a leaping catch up the left field wall (Web Gem #4), Jason Bartlett made a great leaping grab doubling up the runner at first and BJ Upton made a sensational throw to home plate saving a key run (can you say laser show? - Web Gem #2).
3) Very timely “hitting”: hitting is in quotes because the game was actually tied on an RBI walk to Carlos Pena (3 walks on the night). Appropriately, Willy Aybar stayed hot (the Rays fill in player for Longoria) and stepped in and drove in 2 runs with 2 outs in the 8th to seal the victory. He is now batting .364 with 3 HRs, 9 RBIs and 6 extra base hits since taking over 3rd base for the injured Evan Longoria on August 8th (11 games).
4) Finally, you had Joe Maddon aggressively back up BJ Upton when the first base umpire made one of the worst calls I’ve seen all year. Maddon was ejected and BJ now knows that his coach and team mates have his back despite the couple of rough weeks he’s been through. This year is all about TEAM and this aspect of the Rays showed up big tonight.
This game puts the Rays into first place in all of MLB and it is appropriate that it happened the way it did. Remember this game as the year nears a close. I’ll be at the game tomorrow night with my brooms. Go Rays!