RAYS 2, Blue Jays 1: Not pretty, but I’ll take it
By Scott Caruso | July 19th, 2008 | Posted in Game Recap
Just because they won, it doesn’t mean the Rays are out of their funk yet. The offense was yet again abysmal in the chances it had to plate some runs, but the Rays took advantage of some stellar pitching to finally snap that 7-game losing streak and move back into first place in the AL East. (Thanks, Angels!)
James the Great: That’s exactly what Shields was last night. It was a vintage Shields-ian performance, getting a lot of weak swings and limiting the Blue Jays to just 4 hits and 6 total baserunners in 7 innings. It was starting to look like one of those games where Shields would end up as the hard-luck loser (he has a lot of those, doesn’t he?) until…
Benny Boo-Boo Goes Yard: You think Zobrist was looking fastball? He got the pitch he was waiting for and turned it around deep into the seats in right. He’s got some surprising pop (4 home runs) for a guy we’ve always heard was more of a glove-first, good-eye utility infielder-type. This comes just hours after rumors popped up that the Rays might be interested in Clint Barmes as a utility infielder. Not sure why they would need to do that when Benny does a fine job on his own. Unless its ALONG with Zobrist and in place of Aybar.
B.J. Upton… has apparently gone to the Carlos Pena school of hitting. 3 strikeouts in 4 at bats, and he looks just flat-out lost at the plate right now. Um, hit please?
Speaking of Carlos Pena: Did you know that he’s hitting just .217 with runners on base right now? He’s got nearly as many at bats with men on as at bats with the bases empty, and his average is 33 points higher with the bases empty and he has struck out about 15 more times in runners-on situations. Ugly, ugly, ugly.
Pen Pals: Another day, another great performance from the ‘pen. J.P. Howell pitched around a Ben Zobrist error, and Grant Balfour just blew them away like he’s been doing lately. Troy who?
Tags: Blue Jays
July 19th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Balfour has been great, but ONLY uses the fastball. The hitters will catch up to him sooner or later. He needs to show one more avg-plus pitch…slider etc, to really be effective as a closer. Hopefully Percy is working with him…talk about an opportunity to learn from a master!