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Monday, August 30, 2010

Sports / Rays

Tampa Bay tops Toronto 6-2

Posted by Kevin Tall on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 11:41 PM

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Now THAT is how you start off a series! Very exciting to see the Rays take two close ones against Boston and follow that series victory up with something a little more dominating. Not to say Tampa Bay dominated the Toronto Blue Jays in the 6-2 win Monday night, but there was enough breathing room in the ninth inning to allow fans everywhere to enjoy a little more comfort.

Wade Davis got the start and the win for Tampa Bay. He pitched through seven and two-thirds innings, allowing two runs on six hits, with three strikeouts and no walks. Chad Qualls and Randy Choate each chipped in two outs to wrap it up.

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The Rays kicked off the scoring in the bottom of the first inning, putting up a two-spot courtesy of an RBI-double by Carl Crawford and a sac fly by Carlos Pena to score CC. B.J. Upton led off the game on a base hit and moved to second base on a sacrifice bunt by Jason Bartlett. Crawford doubled to bring B.J. home and he moved to third on Evan Longoria’s single. Pena’s line drive to right field allowed Crawford to tag up and score.

The Blue Jays cut the lead in half in the top of the third inning. John McDonald tripled in the lead-off spot and scored on an RBI-ground out by Travis Snider. Davis kept his cool and responded by striking out Fred Lewis and Mike McCoy, the latter of which went down on some killer curveballs.

The Rays put the winning runs on the board in the bottom of the third. With two outs, Crawford reached on an error charged to second baseman Aaron Hill. Longoria then got aboard with an infield single. Both men scored on an opposite-field homerun by Pena to bust the game wide open, 5-1.

The Jays put up another in the top of the fifth with a lead-off home run by Hill. TB added a little bit of insurance in the bottom of the eighth inning. Bartlett reached second base in the lead-off spot with a fielding error and throwing error, both charged to the third baseman McDonald. Crawford’s grounder to second moved JB to third and a sacrifice fly to deep left by Longoria allowed Bartlett to tag at third and score with ease.

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Davis looked sharp in picking up his 11th win of the year. He also managed to put his few mistake pitches behind him and get right back to pitching his game. I’ve seen flashes of this maturity from him this year but Monday’s game was the most pronounced bit.

Only two of the five runs charged to Toronto starter Brett Cecil were earned runs, as a result of the error which allowed the inning third inning to continue. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that matters about the runs scored is the sum to which they add up at the end of the game.

With the win, Tampa Bay stays tied for first in the A.L. East with the New York Yankees. I think a sweep of this three-game set puts them in excellent shape. The key to that is limiting the impact of MLB-leading home-run man Jose Bautista, just like the Rays' recent sweep of the Texas Rangers, in which the hard-hitting Josh Hamilton was rendered a non-factor. Sure, the rest of this Blue Jays team swings the bat well but that is the man to take care of.

This one flew by pretty quickly, clocking in at just under two and a quarter hours. Had I been in attendance, I’m not sure I would have gotten my money’s worth. Actually, I love quick games, and quick wins even better; this one lets me finish watching Star Trek after I write this up.

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