Game #95: The first game of the rest of our lives
By Scott Caruso | July 18th, 2008 | Posted in Game Thread
All-Star Break’s over. Time to get back to business. It’s also time to snap that 7-game losing streak. That’s not an albatross this team needs hanging over its head any longer. How about a nice 5-game win streak or something like that to open up the second-half? That’d be awesome.
As an aside, I hate that we call today the start of the “second half” of the season. Game #82 was the second half of the season. It’s not my fault that MLB waits until 2 weeks later to play the All-Star Game.
What to watch for: Signs of life from the offense that wren’t there in the week prior to the break. If past history is any indication, A.J. Burnett’s the guy to try to do it off of.
James Shields - Shields took his sixth loss of the season on July 11, when he allowed five runs on 10 hits in six innings against the Royals, continuing his hard luck on the road. Fortunately for the Rays, he has been strong at Tropicana Field this season where he is 5-1 with a 2.13 ERA in 10 starts. The 26-year-old right-hander’s best pitch has always been his changeup, but he also has a plus fastball and curve and he’s added a cutter that has helped him throw inside to left-handers. He is 3-0 with a 2.70 ERA in four career starts against the Blue Jays.
A.J. Burnett - Burnett has had mixed results over the first half of the season. Despite this, his win total (10) in the first half of the campaign, has already matched the overall total that he had amassed in each of the previous two seasons. Amidst various trade rumors, Burnett handcuffed the Yankees in his last start. He took a shutout into the ninth inning, until surrendering a solo home run to Jason Giambi. Burnett allowed just the one run on six hits over 8 1/3 innings. He walked one while striking out eight, and tossed 98 pitches in the outing. In his career against the Rays, the Toronto right-hander is 6-3 with a 3.21 ERA in 14 career starts.
Check out the Rays’ career numbers against A.J. Burnett.
View the game preview from Baseball Reference.
| TAMPA BAY RAYS |
TORONTO BLUE JAYS |
| LINEUP 1 | LINEUP 1 |
| LINEUP 2 | LINEUP 2 |
| LINEUP 3 | LINEUP 3 |
| LINEUP 4 | LINEUP 4 |
| LINEUP 5 | LINEUP 5 |
| LINEUP 6 | LINEUP 6 |
| LINEUP 7 | LINEUP 7 |
| LINEUP 8 | LINEUP 8 |
| LINEUP 9 | LINEUP 9 |
Be sure to join us in the chat room for some good Rays talk during the game!!!
Tags: Blue Jays
July 18th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
I was at the game, and it wasn’t exciting, but it was a good baseball win.
Good pitching to get out of tight spots.
And timely hitting, I wish we could have hit more often, but it worked.
And some great plays on defense by the outfield.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Good win, but will not win much with only five hits. To the Rays’ credit, it was against their ace.
July 18th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
The fans were great and we won. It counts. Boston loosing 11 to 3 in the 6th. Looks like we will be BACK IN 1st.
July 19th, 2008 at 3:04 am
Back in first! Keep up the good work Halos. I thought they permanently removed the letter between v and x from the alphabet, but it’s back baby!!!
July 19th, 2008 at 6:04 am
Who ever thought Zobrist would be an unlikely hero with a 2 HR blast?
July 19th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Actually meant 2 run HR Blast. Sorry, just got up and no caffine yet.
July 19th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Good to wake up after a win! Waking up after a loss sucks.