Well, we now have our answer as to this team’s historic potential. The Tampa Bay Rays have followed up their 13-0 winning start with two horrible performances against the Toronto Blue Jays they lost by a combined score of 11-5.
I don’t want to do a full 180 and bash all over the Rays after (cautiously, I might add) praising them, but I did say that they hadn’t been properly tested yet.
Despite getting off to a historic 13-0 start, the Tampa Bay Rays have been absolutely hammered by their divisional foes in the Toronto Blue Jays these last two days as the Blue Jays won Friday’s error-filled game 6-3 and today’s pitching disaster-class 5-2. Now, like I said, I’m not going to completely bash the Rays as anyone can have two bad games (and especially in baseball as they play close to 10 million/year), but these two games should serve as a reality check.
Beating up on the Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics, Washington Nationals, and the Detroit Tigers, all of whom should finish within the bottom-8 of the MLB this season, as badly as they did was very impressive (they completely destroyed the early season records of these teams), but it’s another thing to hammer good teams like the Toronto Blue Jays. Yet, that was a bridge too far for these Rays…obviously.
As I said, the game on Friday was an utter crapshoot for a Rays fans’ perspective as they not only had 2-3 bad fielding errors (i.e.: Wando Franco’s goof in the 5th, Brandon Lowe’s goof in the 5th), but the reliever Colin Pouche lost all control of the mound as he turned a 2-1 Blue Jays lead into a 5-1 blowout Rays domination by walking two batter home.
It was a massive wake-up call for this team that some (usually the hyperbolic, rabid fans) had going 162-0, winning the American League pennant, and winning the World Series by sweeping every team in their way as it showed they can get beaten by good, rugged opponents (which the Blue Jays are).
Yet, while Friday was just a horrible night for the Rays as practically nothing went right, today was them flat out getting schooled.
Pitchers Trevor Kelley (2 hits, 2 runs, 2 earned runs, 1 walk, 0 strikeouts, and a 9.00 ERA), Calvin Faucher (2 hits, 1 run, 1 earned run, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts, 4.15 ERA), Josh Flemming (3 hits, 2 runs, 2 earned runs, 4 walks, 1 strikeout, 6.10 ERA) all had really bad games as the bottom of the Blue Jays batting order, such as Daniel Jensen (2 hits, 1 RBI, .667 batting average), Alejandro Kirk (2 hits, 2 runs, 1 RBI, 1.000 batting average), and Matt Chapman (1 hit, 1 run, .333 batting average), somehow figured them out
Moreover, the Rays sluggers, such as Yandy Diaz (0 hits, 0 runs, 0 RBI, 0.000 batting average), Isaac Parades (0 run, 0 hits, 0 RBI 0.000 batting average), and Harold Ramirez (0 runs, 1 hit, 0 RBI, .250 batting average), simply couldn’t hit the ball as Yusei Kikuchi (4 hits, 1 run, 1 earned run, 1 walk, 9 strikeouts, 1 home run, 4.70 ERA), Erik Swanson (0 hits, o runs, 0 earned runs, 2 walks, 1 strikeout, 2.16 ERA), and Jordan Romano (3 hits, 0 runs, o earned runs, o walks, 2 strikeouts, 3.38 ERA) were lights out great.
Simply put, the Rays just didn’t show up to play against a Blue Jays team that not only is young, hungry, and ruthless (as we saw with all of those runs earned from errors and walks), but also is now just three games back of the Rays for 1st place in the AL East.
Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be too depressed if I was a Rays fan after watching these two games as they still have another game against the Rays to prove their start to the season wasn’t a fluke, while this scoring slump (they only had 5 runs in the last two games) won’t last forever.
Maybe this Blue Jays team is just a bad matchup for the Rays, or perhaps the injuries to Jose Siri (CF), Zach Eflin (P), Tyler Glasnow (P), Shane Baz (P), Jeffrey Springs (P), and Ryan Thompson (P) are starting to take their toll.
I guess we’ll see when the Rays face off against the Reds (4th in NL Central; 6-8 record), White Sox (3rd in AL Central; 6-9 record), and the reigning World Series champions Houston Astros (3rd in AL West; 6-8 record).
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