Joe Maddon decided to give Desmond Jennings a day off and install B.J. Upton in the leadoff spot. That move immediately paid dividends as Upton slammed a leadoff homer off of Josh Johnson to give the Rays a quick 1-0 lead. It was Upton’s first leadoff home run since 2010. That would be all the run support the Rays managed to get Alex Cobb for a while. But it was enough.

Cobb simply dominated on Sunday. (Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE)

One start after a debacle versus the New York Mets, Cobb came through with his best major league start. Cobb allowed a 2nd innings hit batsman, a third inning single, a 4th inning walk, and a 7th inning single. That was it. Cobb breezed through 7 innings allowing no runs on just 2 hits, striking out 10 while walking 1. 69 of his 100 pitches were strikes and his groundout to flyout ratio was 8-1. The key for Cobb was his signature pitch, his split-change (a combination between a splitter and a changeup). It was downright unhittable. According to Brooks Baseball, Cobb threw it 53 times (53% of his pitches), 42 for strikes, and he forced 14 swings-and-misses thanks to jaw-dropping late sinking action. Sunday was Alex Cobb at his best.

The Rays got Cobb a couple more runs in the 6th and 7th on RBI singles by Drew Sutton and Ben Zobrist. Joel Peralta and Fernando Rodney followed with a perfect inning with 2 strikeouts each to complete the 2-hitter as the Rays beat the Marlins 3-0. Cobb (3-3) earned the win in the game, while Johnson (4-5) took the loss and Rodney earned his 19th save. The Rays got a sparkling effort from Cobb to follow up impressive performances from Matt Moore and James Shields in the Trop component of the Citrus Series versus the Marlins, and they took advantage of their opportunities offensively, leaving just 1 runner in scoring position all game. The Rays have faced a frustrating stretch, but they played hard versus the Marlins and came away with a series win, and hopefully this time they can keep that going against the Nationals and Phillies. The Rays have a well-deserved off day Monday (I’m sure they’ll make up some of the sleep they lost on Saturday night/Sunday morning) before heading to Washington to take on the first-place Nationals.

What more could Jamie do? (Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE)

The Marlins stole a run against James Shields and the Rays in the first inning. Jose Reyes singled, advanced to second base on a groundball, and scored on a Sean Rodriguez throwing error to hand Miami a 1-0 lead. Shields would retire each of the next two batters. But then more poor defense burned him in the next frame. With 1 out, Matt Joyce dropped a Gaby Sanchez flyball for a single ahead of a Scott Cousins ground-rule double. John Buck grounded out for what should have been the inning’s third out. But instead, Jose Reyes hit a ball just by Elliot Johnson for a 2-run single, and suddenly the Rays trailed 3-0 on unearned runs.

The Rays would battle back against Anibal Sanchez. Elliot Johnson tripled to begin the 3rd inning and scored on a Jose Molina RBI single. Then Molina improbably came up huge in the 5th inning as well, slamming a solo homer to pull the Rays within a run. And then the Rays tied the game in the 7th when Sean Rodriguez slammed an RBI triple against Steve Cishek in relief of Sanchez to tie the game at 3. Sanchez went 6.1 innings, allowing 3 runs (1 an inherited runner scoring) on 4, striking out 6 while walking 3.

Shields should have coasted to a win. He wasn’t dominant yet he went 7.2 innings, allowing not a single earned run but 3 unearned run on 8 hits, striking out 5 while walking 1. He did everything he could to throw shutout ball, but his defense simply let him down.

Molina tried to continue his improbable game in the 9th inning. Batting against Edward Mujica, Molina hit a high drive to deep left field, but ex-Ray Justin Ruggiano made a leaping grab to rob Molina of an extra-base hit. The game went into extra innings.

The Rays survived an Elliot Johnson error in the top of the 10th and hoped to end the game in the bottom of the inning. Desmond Jennings reached on a Jose Reyes error and then Matt Joyce singled. But B.J. Upton grounded into  a 5-5-3 double play, with Hanley Ramirez toeing the third base bag for the force, as the Marlins escaped to force the game into the 11th inning.

Burke Badenhop came up huge in the clutch to work around a 12th inning double by Logan Morrison and a 13th inning triple by Jose Reyes. Both bullpens buckled down and simply did not allow a run from the 10th to the 14th inning. But Brandon Gomes broke down in his second inning of work in the 15th. Ruggiano doubled and this time the Marlins got him in as Scott Cousins laced an RBI triple. Heath Bell shut down the Rays in the bottom of the inning as he struck out the side for his 14th save as the Marlins won the hard-fought game 4-3. Ryan Webb (3-1) earned the win with 3 shutout innings, and Gomes (1-2) took the loss. What a game it was. The pitching for both sides was certainly not dominant but simply came through time after time with runners on base, stranding a total of 26 runners in the game. A couple of the game’s heroes were Jose Molina and Justin Ruggiano. Who would have guessed that? But this 15 inning classic didn’t need to happen. Shields played the same game as the game’s other pitchers. He allowed hits, sure, but he did everything he needed to do to escape jams. His defense just didn’t do its job. You’re not going to be perfect on defense. But the errors happened at precisely the wrong time and it cost him and the Rays this game.

Hopefully, with each passing start, we can continue to say this…but for now, it bears repeating. Matt Moore was sharp yet again, going 7 innings, striking out 8 and allowing just 1 hit, getting his second win against the Marlins, and opposing pitcher Carlos Zambrano, in 6 days. Moore has now earned a win in his last 3 starts, to run his record to 4-5 on the season, after earning just 1 win in his first 10 starts. Moore did not allow a hit, nor a runner in scoring position after the 1st inning. Zambrano ,on the other hand, lasted just 2 innings allowing 4 ER, yielding 6 walks and 3 hits, to a Rays team that would undoubtedly prefer to see him more often, as they’ve touched him up for 11 ER over his last 2 starts in just a shade over 4 innings total. With the loss, Zambrano dropped to 4-5 on the season.

For the Rays, Ben Zobrist and Carlos Pena walked back to back to start the 2nd, followed by an RBI double by Jose Lobaton scoring Zobrist. Pena and Lobaton would follow suit later, scoring on an RBI single from Desmond Jennings and a bases loaded walk by BJ Upton, respectively, before Hideki Matsui grounded out to 2nd to end the frame, with the Rays putting 3 runs on the board.

Chad Gaudin replaced Zambrano in the 4th, and the Rays tacked on another run with a timely two out hit by Will Rhymes. Following a leadoff single by Zobrist and another walk drawn by Pena (he’d ultimately walk 4 times and score 4 times on the night), Zobrist was caught stealing 3rd, and Pena was fortunate not to get caught going to 2nd on what appeared to be a botched double-steal attempt. Rhymes’s 2-out single scored Pena from 2nd, ahead of an errant throw by Logan Morrison. It was the first of two times on the night that Rhymes would come up big with 2 outs, as he later had an RBI single in the 5th,an inning that also saw Zobrist hit the Rays only home run of the night,a solo shot to right.

The Rays finished their scoring barrage in the 7th, as Pena and Lobaton drew back to back 2 out walks, knocking Gaudin from the game, who was replaced by Sandy Rosario. From there, Sean Rodriguez, inserted into the game at 3B earlier for defensive purposes, ripped an RBI single to left scoring Pena.  Following a single by Elliot Johnson which advanced the runners, Desmond Jennings cleared the bases with a double, giving him 4 RBI on the night, and summarily scoring the 11th Rays run on a Matt Joyce single.

Burke Badenhop would come on in relief of Moore in the 8th, and retired the Marlins in order. Brandon Gomes, just recalled from Durham, struck out the side in the 9th following a leadoff walk, preserving the 1 hit, combined 11-0 shutout win for the Rays. The victory snaps a 3 game losing skid after an ugly sweep at the hands of the Mets, giving the Rays a 36-28 mark on the season, 2.5 games back of the Yankees (38-25) and 1 behind the Orioles (37-27), in the AL East. The Marlins loss is their 3rd straight and 9th in their last 10, including 4 losses to the Rays. Miami’s loss drops them back to .500 (32-32) on the season.  Tampa Bay will send James Shields to the mound  on Saturday, opposing Anibal Sanchez, in a rematch of last Sunday’s pitching matchup, a game won by the Rays, 4-2.

Notes: The victory Friday ensures the Rays taking the annual 6 game Citrus Series from the Marlins for the 2nd straight season, and gave them their 8th consecutive win overall in the head to head series. The 11 runs scored by the Rays is a season high at home (previously 8, vs NYY, TOR, and BAL, once each), and the first time scoring double-digits at home since 8/17/2010 (10, vs TEX).