RAYS 3, Cardinals 1: Rollin’ down the (Mississippi) River
By Scott Caruso | May 17th, 2008 | Posted in Game Recap
When you’re hot, you’re hot, and even though the offense – particularly from Carlos Pena – is mighty disappointing, the Rays keep on winning games with stellar starting pitching. If you had to pick one or the other, you’d always want to have reliable starting pitching.
Another Great Performance: Andy Sonnanstine was very good yet again, this time taking a shutout into the 8th inning. He attacked the Cardinals’ hitters and really kept them off-balance. He easily worked out of the small trouble he got himself into, and aside from the Chris Duncan home run, every pitch hit its spot. Yes, he’ll have some games where he’ll drive you crazy and get banged around, but we’re seeing THIS Sonny a whole lot more than that other Sonny so far.
And the dude can hit, too. He’s now 4-for-8 in interleague play.
Power Outage: The struggles of Carlos Pena continue, and even though he had a little RBI single tonight, overall it was another less-than-stellar time at the plate for him. He seems to be quite adept at killing Rays rallies, and his total power outage is really starting to be a burden on the middle of the order. Evan Longoria tried to pick up the slack a bit – he went 2-for-4 – but when Eric Hinske stops hitting (0-for-4), Carlos Pena needs to step up and be an offensive leader.
On the one hand, you don’t want to go messing with the order because the team is winning right now. On the other hand, is Pena really helping the team by batting 4th right now? Does it make more sense to move someone else into that spot until he gets his head on straight? Why not Cliff Floyd (in AL games)? Eric Hinske in these NL park games? I’m not sure what the answer is. I know he’s going to start hitting better eventually, I just don’t know how long you keep things as they are until that happens.
Another possibility could be to move him UP in the order, back into the 3-hole. I know it sounds counter-intuitive to do it that way, but it gets B.J. batting behind him for a little more protection. And maybe he sees a few more fastballs that he can center if Carl is on base ahead of him. I don’t know. Just a thought.
Slump Buster? 2 hits for Evan Longoria last night, and even though he did strike out (again), he also looked a little more comfortable at the plate than he has recently. Could switching venues like the Rays did be a boon to him?
Accept my apologies, Mr. Iwamura: As soon as I really started getting critical of him, Akinori Iwamura began to hit. And hit a lot. He now has 6 multi-hit games in his last 7 and was on base 3 more times tonight. He also knocked in a run. That makes it 20 straight games in which he’s reached base at least once.
Do the Bartlett: First of all, great to hear that Jason Bartlett and his wife are doing okay. And here’s another guy who’s really started to turn it on offensively of late. 2 more hits last night and his average is creeping up ever so slowly, now at .245. Now if he could only learn to take a walk…
Error-free is the life for me: Save for one play where Eric Hinske looked very uncomfortable backing up near the wall, the defensive effort was stellar yet again. Slick glove-work on the infield and the smooth defensive play of the outfielders made this game yet another joy to watch.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:42 am
I literally jumped up out of my chair and cheered on the pitch where Sonny stuck out Pujols looking. What a pitch. Sonny might be the funnest pitcher to watch pitch the way he goes right after hitters. Even when Jackson throws 8 scoreless he usually makes me want to pull my own hair out.