HER RAYS!

Riggan a series win! 

The Rays win AGAIN.  Cool beans.  New York 2 – Tampa 5. 

Some of my thoughts from the game:

Longo makes a great diving stop to start the game.  Love him.

Aki hit a lead off homerun!  That new do is serving him well.

Riggy gets a nice base hit in the 3rd.  Zobrist is hit by a pitch.  Not on the thumb.  Aki walks and the bases are loaded with no outs.  Crawford hits a sac fly and Damon’s throw literally rolled to the plate.  I laughed out loud.

In the top of the 4th Kazmir picked off Melky Cabrera.  Except he didn’t get the call.  Dammit he was out!  Maddon should have pulled a Pinella on that one.

Bottom of the 4th Hinske cracks a double, and then Riggy absolutley crushes a ball to left.  Did he lose the Mr. T necklace?  I didn’t notice it today.

Scott Kazmir walked Morgan Ensberg twice.  C’mon man that should be an easy out.  Kazmir still didn’t look back to normal but he pitched another 6 shut-out innings so I’m not going to bitch about it.

Rays scored again in the 6th when Aki started it off with a double.  So great when the lead-off hitter gets on.  Crawford moved him over with a sac fly.  He was the sac man today.  That sounds kind of funny in my dirty mind.  BJ hit a sac fly too and Aki scored the Rays 5th run.

Glover in to pitch in the 7th.  Glover hit their bats instead of the glove.  He gave up two runs.

Question – There were a few balls up the middle today.  Would Bartlett have gotten to those balls?

Pena kinda blew today, and as much as I love Longo he didn’t look so great at the plate either.

Wheeler and Percy shut those Yankees down, and sent them to last place in the east.

So now it’s off to inter-league play.  Should be interesting.  Can’t wait to see Sonny go yard!  Go Rays!!
 

I couldn’t make it home until about 9pm tonight and I didn’t have it in me to rewind the game to the beginning.  I had a vague idea of what was going on because every where you go in Florida there are Yankees fans.  So I’d heard about multiple homeruns, yada yada.  Why do I want to go back and put myself through that.

Sounds like Sonny had a night to forget right from the beginning.  He must not have been breathing through the right eyelid or something.  Damon and Rodriguez each hit one out in the first inning.  Then in the second Morgan Ensberg sends one to the seats in left.  Morgan Ensberg!  He looks like a tax accountant not a baseball player, and I’m pretty sure he should be an easy out.  After four more runs in the fourth Sonny’s done.

So I sit down to 7-2 Yankees, just in time to see BJ get thrown out at third.  I’m not entirely sure he was out, but he’s got some seriously bad base running karma going on right now.  Maybe he should play it a little safer for a while.

Cut to the bottom of the seventh where things get real interesting.  Aki flies out.  Carl Crawford 2 run shot!  Pena hit by pitch. (possibly on the end of the bat?), BJ Upton 2 run shot!  Longoria hits his first homerun, to tie it up!  Cool! 7-7  Hinske grounds out and Riggy strikes out to end the party.

Top of the 8th, things are rolling along.  Reyes gets the first two outs, then Robinson Cano comes in to pinch hit and totally rains on our hit parade, homering to right.  Dag-nab-it.  I had a feeling that might be the end and that was before they brought in Rivera. 

I guess this is what you call a positive loss.  Yankees 8 – Rays 7.  Some would argue that a loss is a loss but the Rays showed some spark tonight.  Doh!mann was impressive and kept the game from getting really ugly by fending the Yanks off for 3.2 innings.  Reyes took another loss, but Glover did a great job getting A-Rod out in the clutch.  The offense got going.  Carl Crawford cranked it up for 3 RBI.  BJ, Longoria and Hinkse hit well too.  It would be great to see more of that.

One negative thought – This batting order gives me the heeby geebies: Riggans, Haynes, Bartlett, and Aki.

C’mon EdWIN, get them back to .500!

Pregame – All day long I was looking forward to watching the Rays game on ESPN, and hearing a fresh take.  It never occurred to me that the game would be blacked out.  I know why it never occurred to me though.  The Rays aren’t usually on ESPN!  It’s Hammel vs. Mussina so this should be interesting.

Top 1st – The Rays go down in order on like 6 pitches.  You gotta make Mussina work harder than that.

Bottom 1st – Damon singles off Hammel the bean pole.  Jeter hits into a fielders choice, Damon’s out.  Abreu (who is the slowest batter ever) shi*t! hits a two run homer.  Not Good.  0-2 Yankees.  ARod and Matsui both ground out to end the inning.

Top 2nd – Rays go down in order again.

Bottom 2nd – Yankees go down in order too.

This McGill Plumbing commercial is so bad.  I’m sorry but I don’t like crack with my baseball.

Top 3rd – What happened to Jeter, he’s not in the lineup?  And does Wilson Betemit have more or less range at shortstop??  Johnny Gomes!  Oh I have such a love/hate relationship with this guy, but he just hit one to the seats in left, so I’m feelin the love right now.  1-2 Yankees.  DeFelice grounds out.  Bartlett walks on a pitch that looked a lot like a strike, then steals second sliding under the tag.  Aki grounds out but moves Bartlett to third.  Carl Crawford hits a weak grounder to end it.  What’s up with him?  He needs to get hot.  Soon.

Bottom 3rd – Molina doubles.  Still no report on Jeter.  I bet ESPN has a report.  Damon pops out.  Ensberg is up to bat.  He is way late on the fastball, Hammel should just rock and fire!  He pops out too.  DeFelice has tons of finger paint on.  Should we be worried about Hammel’s eyesight? 
This just in…Jeter has a strained left quad.  I bet they are just being overly cautious.  Meanwhile Abreu gets a base hit, but BJ holds Molina at third, and ARod grounds out to end the threat.

Top 4th – Three more ground outs for the Rays.  Oy.

Can Aflac not afford to get Ben Affleck in one of their commercials?  Think of the possibilities.

Bottom 4th – Hinske makes a great snag in right and the Yankees go down one, two, three.

Top 5th – Aybar and Gomes strike out feebly.  DeFelice doubles in a great at bat against Mussina, but Bartlett flys out to strand him.

Bottom 5th – Melky grounds out.  Have I declared my love for Jason Bartlett lately?  Julio Lugo made three, yes three, errors yesterday.  Molina grounds out.  Damon, who has great sideburns by the way, hits a bloop single to center.  Ensberg grounds out to third when Pena makes a great scoop on Aybar’s throw in the dirt.

Top 6th – Aki and Carl ground out AGAIN.  Pena grounds to second and Cano makes a sorry throw to first.  He gets the “E”, but the first baseman Ensberg should have been able to handle it.  Cano must drive Yankees fans insane.  He’s brilliant one minute and then…kind of like Johnny Gomes!  BJ follows suit and grounds out.

Bottom 6th – Abreu hits one to right center where Hinske flubs it.  Triple.  Ok.  Hammel needs to settle down right here and not let this get out of control.  ARod singles.  1-3 Yankees.  Matsui doubles and Rodriguez scores from first.  1-4 Yankees.  Uh, still no outs.  WTF?  Cano grounds out but moves Matsui to third.  Betemit strikes out.  Okay lets get out of this inning.  The Rays walk Melky to get to Molina.  It worked he grounds out.  Interesting stat provided by Stats and Magrane – both pitchers only have one walk at this point in the game.

Top 7th – Time to get those bats going.  Brian Bruney is in to pitch.  That surprises me since Mussina was good on pitch count.  Hinkse flys out.  I think Bruney is need of a kleenex.  He keeps wiping his nose on his sleeve like a little kid.  Aybar gets hit by a pitch, but Gomes and DeFelice can’t get him anywhere.

Bottom 7th – Dohman in to pitch.  Damon flies out.  Ensberg gets a base hit up the middle.  He should have been an easy out.  Abreu walks after an eternity.  ARod strikes out looking on a pitch outside.  Dohman got lucky there.  Matsui gets another base hit to make it 1-5 Yankees.  Cano, who is battling Abreu for slowest batter ever gets a base hit.  1-6 Yankees.  Can we stop the bleeding please?  Staats mentions that Glover is now up in the bullpen and I’m thinking “You mean nobody’s been up!”  Finally Betemit strikes out.

These “we are one team” commercials are really annoying when they’re losing.  We are one team that needs to get their sh*t together!

Top 8th – Farnsworth in to pitch for the Yankees.  Bartlett flies out.  Aki strikes out swinging, and I know Magrane says he keeps his hands back, but he totally stepped out on that pitch.  Carl Crawford yuck, taps it to the pitcher.  Does he always swing at the first pitch?

Bottom 8th – Glover in to pitch for the Rays and he gets the Yankees in order.

Top 9th – Hawkins pitching for the Yankees.  Pena base hit, and then moves to second on a wild pitch to BJ.  Ok Rays get something going.  BJ grounds out.  Hinske, who’s getting heckled for his Red Sox days, walks.  Aybar grounds out and moves the runners over, but Gomes strikes out hook, line and sinker.  Final score 1-6 Yankees.

Post Game – Absolutely nothing to get excited about tonight.  If I hadn’t had a bunch of caffeine today I might not have stayed awake.  The Rays hitters couldn’t get anything going and seemed to be guessing at pitches all night.  They gave Hammel no help and he did pretty good considering who he was pitching against.
I think it’s a good thing they’re heading back to Florida.  The warmth and home crowd should re-energize them.  .500 is not bad for this road trip, but now it’s time to catch the Orioles.  Yes you read that right.

Time to watch basketball.