Price Is A 9 Game Winner

David Price became the AL’s first 9 game winner with a 10-1 win against the Jays last night, which included a season high 15 hits. The Rays are getting out of a slump that included poor pitching and below average hitting. Still, with all the bumps the Rays had within the last couple weeks they are still the leagues best team at 39-20.

The bats have came alive the past two nights accounting for a run differential of 19-1. Pretty damn good for a team that has been in contention with the Rays throughout the year with a record of (33-27). “We’ve just played two really good games. We’ve pitched well. We’ve swung the bat well. We’ve played great defense,” Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said. “We’ve kind of put it together for these two games against them here, and it’s important because they are that good.” Its just nice to see this when they play at home, maybe it will bring some more fans out to the games. And it really should.

With Carlos Pena being red hot and out of his slump hitting 3 homeruns in the past two games, including a back-to-back homerun with Ben Zobrist, theh Rays lineup is finally looking like they should. Pena was considerably hitting the worst on the team with an average below .200 and seeing less playing time with Hank Blalock being brought up. Pena has lead the league in homeruns 2 out of the last 3 years, so hitting homeruns hasn’t been the problem, its being able to make contact and get that average up. Lets not forget he is leading the league with strikeouts too. So even though Pena might be out of his slump, we need him to make more contact other than just hitting homeruns.

For our pitching… What can we really say on how great David Price is pitching this year? He is the first pitcher in the AL to record 9 wins and has the most games pitched with less than or equal to one run scored. His ERA also leads the league at 2.23. I know at the begginning of the season we were preaching about Matt Garza winning the Cy Young, but it looks as Price is in the lead by far for this one. Although, Price’s command was a little shaky is this game, his fastball has been nothing but pure dominance and very hard to hit when hes on.

David Price = Cy Young  (9-2), ERA 2.23, WHIP 1.17 

Evan Longoria = MVP  Ave .326, RBI 47, HR 11