Rays Pull Out A Strange Victory In New York

I have been out of town for literally almost a whole month.  I have not been able to watch a Rays game in its entirety in that time frame, so sitting on my couch yesterday with a couple friends, watching the game was a nice relaxing experience for me.  It was even better that I was going to get to watch my man David Price in his 3rd start this season.  

The Rays scored 4 in the ninth off of declining HOF’er Mariano Rivera for the W.  

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5.2 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 5 BB, 3 K was the final line for the Rays young ace.  He gave up the early HR to ARoid and then settled down after that.  The Rays though were just awful in the field, and only one of Price’s runs counted.

Here is a strike/ball chart from DRaysBay and BrooksBaseball.Net.  

Reid Brignac who is seeing some extended MLB time due to our entire IF being on the DL committed two of those errors himself.   Reid is hitting .217 now in the majors and if he wants to keep a spot on the big league team once Jason Bartlett comes back, he will need to at least improve his fielding.  

The two big story lines from the game though, had to be Ben Zobrist once again delivering in the clutch with his 11th HR, and Pinch Runner Andy Sonnastine scoring the go ahead run in the 9th.   Sonnastine has been a jack of all trades this season, pinch hitting and now pinch running.  His ability to contribute to the team on days when he is not pitching will certainly be factored into who is getting bumped from the rotation once Scott Kazmir returns from the DL.  Ben Zobrist continues to be the teams 2nd best hitter.  He now has 11 HR on the year to go along with 33 RBI.  He plays just about any position on the field for us, and his HR to AB ratio is at 1 for every 11.8 AB’s.