Today Roberto Hernandez took the hill against Eric Stults and the San Diego Padres looking for a sweep of the 3 game series.  This is the Roberto Hernandez that Andrew Friedman and the Tampa Bay Rays expected when he was inked to a one year deal.  Today we saw a vintage Fausto Carmona like performance going six strong innings while giving up 2 earned runs on five hits while striking out four and walking two on 95 pitches.

The Rays drew first blood in the bottom of the second after Evan Longoria  walked and James Loney singled putting men on 1st & 2nd.  After a Sean Rodriguez pop out Yunel Escobar walked to load the bases for the light hitting Jose Molina.  Molina hit a deep sac fly to right field to give the Rays a 1-0 lead.  Sam Fuld ended the inning after being perhaps robbed by a great defensive play by first baseman Yonder Alonso.  Tampa Bay then threatened in the third but Stults worked out of a jam to hold the Rays at bay.

Hernandez really only got into trouble in the fourth and fifth innings.  In the fourth after a lead-off walk to Chase Headley and a single up the middle to Carlos Quentin, putting men at 1st & 2nd with no one out, Yonder Alonso lined an RBI single past the diving second baseman to tie the game at 1 apiece.  Hernandez was able to limit the damage on a broken bat come backer by Chris Denorfia, invoking a 1-4-3 double play to end the threat.

Hernandez had his second mistake of the game on a 1 out solo home run to second baseman Alexi Amarista, giving the Padres a 2-1 lead.  After working himself into a jam of men on 1st & 2nd with the shift on Escobar made a great play to stop Chase Headley’s hit and end the inning.

The bottom of the sixth is where the Rays struck again with a lead-off double by Evan Longoria.  James Loney then lifted a fly ball to right allowing Longoria to advance to third.  With one on and one out Sean Rodriguez tied the game with a bloop single to center.  Yunel Escobar then battled Padres pitcher Eric Stults, invoking a wild pitch, allowing Rodriguez to take second base.  Heads up baserunning by Rodriguez paid off as Escobar then crushed a ball to right field for an RBI double giving the Rays a 3-2 lead.  Stults then made it out of the inning and kept the Padres in the game.

The Rays bullpen took over from there as Jake McGee, Joel Peralta, and Fernando Rodney did a spectacular job closing out the 7th, 8th, and 9th, pitching as they should and giving the Rays the win.

This was a great come-from-behind win for the Rays and is encouraging coming off a walk-off win the night before.  The key to victory here was superb pitching coupled with timely hitting.  No one performance stood out today aside from the Roberto Hernandez quality start.  This was a complete team win.  James Loney also continued his hot streak going 2-4  with a solo homer in the eighth, his 3rd on the season.

Next up for the Rays is a 3 game series as the rival Boston Red Sox come to Tampa Bay starting Tuesday at 7:10 pm as John Lackey (1-3, 2.82 ERA) faces off against Matt Moore (6-0, 2.14 ERA).

Roberto Hernandez was excellent for the Rays, going 6 innings allowing just 1 run on 5 hits, striking out 7 while walk walking just 1. His only real mistake was an Adam Lind homer in the second inning. He threw quite a few pitches, 103 to be exact, in his 6 frames, but he was dominant and gave the Rays about as good of an outing as they could have hoped for. Hernandez may have had another 15 or so pitches left in him, but Dave Martinez, managing for the ejected Joe Maddon, decided to pull him in favor of Jake McGee for the 7th. The results were predictable, like a harsh reality we dream isn’t true before it happens again.

The Rays got their offense off J.A. Happ in the second inning. A Sean Rodriguez double and a James Loney single began the inning before Rodriguez was called out trying to score on a Jose Molina groundball when replays showed that he had not been tagged. The play got Joe Maddon ejected from the game and may have gotten the Rays going. A wild pitch tied the game at 1 before Yunel Escobar singled, and then the Rays scored 2 more runs but not in the way anyone would have wanted as a Desmond Jennings line drive hit in the head. Happ was carted off the field after a delay, but he was conscious and waved to the crowd on his way out. Ryan Roberts capped the scoring with an RBI single to make it 4-1 Rays.

In the 7th, the struggling Jake McGee entered the game again and for the umpteenth time could not do the job. He retired the final three batters he faced–but only after allowing an Adam Lind double and a Colby Rasmus 2-run home run to make the Rays’ lead just 4-3. McGee did try to mix in his slider and threw a good one to get ahead 0-1 on Rasmus, but then he decided to come back with another one and hanged it, allowing Rasmus to tee off. The nightmare continued the following inning as Kyle Farnsworth allowed a game-tying RBI double to Jose Bautista before Cesar Ramos came in to get an inning-ending double play. Then in the 9th, Joel Peralta became the latest Rays reliever to implode, allowing a Maicer Izturis solo home run and a Melky Cabrera RBI double to make it 6-4, and that would be the final.

The Rays stuck to their formula. Their starting pitching was great, their offense wasn’t great but was opportunistic, and their defense were outstanding, not making any errors and delivering a few incredible plays. But the bullpen is just missing entirely, and that doesn’t seem like something that’s about to change. There is nothing worse than succeeding in just about every facet of the game only to have one glaring weakness take it all away. The Rays have to find some way to turn their bullpen around. Matt Moore goes for the Rays against Ricky Romero as the Rays hope to simply salvage a game versus the Blue Jays despite the fact that they should be going for the sweep right now. The way the bullpen is playing, Moore better toss his first major league complete game.

This game getting washed away can be viewed as a break the Rays. In this game, Roberto Hernandez was doing OK, allowing just 1 run in 3 innings, but Ervin Santana was great for Kansas City, allowing just 2 hits in 4 shutout innings, striking out 7 against 3 walks. In the grand scheme of things, the Rays have been struggling through a terrible series in Kansas City, enduring tough losses in their last two games, and making this game up when the weather is hotter and hopefully their team is as well could make all the difference. For now, the Rays can just enjoy the rest of the day off and now have to hope for better weather as they head to Colorado, which has seen snow itself the past few days. Matt Moore will hope to get the Rays back in the win column against Jeff Francis and the Rockies at 8:40 PM EST on Friday night.