The Rays won a well-pitched, sharp defense nail biter tonight in Cleveland, with Steven Matz (seven innings pitched) and Ryan Vilade (three hits, two RBI) leading the way.
If you like quick moving pitching duels, then the first four and a half innings of this game would be your idea of a good time.
The Rays had their work cut out for them, facing Plant City’s own Parker Messnick, a 25-year old lefty who has been phenomenal over his short career.
Steven Matz, pitching for the Rays, came off a terrible
start against the Reds but tonight he had overcome whatever had caused him to give up four walks and three homers in just three innings (or maybe his problem last time was simply having to face the 21st century iteration of the Big Red machine).
He scattered two hits until the fifth inning, when he gave up a two-run homer to Daniel Schneemann (fun fact, his last name translates to “snow man.”) You know the baseball truism, “it’s not the home runs, it’s the walks before the home runs?” Tonight that was truly the case. Just before Snow Man’s homer, David Fry had walked on a 10 pitch at bat, with ball four coming after Cleveland challenged a called strike.
The Rays did get one of those runs back in the sixth inning. Yandy Diaz drew a walk, advanced to second on a ground ball and scored on Ryan Vilade’s two out single. This was nice because it cut the Cleveland lead in half, and also led to Messick’s exit from the game.
Matz pitched very well — his final line was seven innings, four hits, two runs and one walk. He only struck out two but being a weak contact guy > being a big K guy, at least sometimes, because a weak contact guy is more likely to get through seven innings.
He was also helped by good defense, with really no “what the heck” plays in the field, and a few very nice outs like this one:
The Rays finally managed to barrel up a few pitches, and take the lead, in the eighth inning. Jonathan Aranda homered on a mistake pitch over the plate.
Junior Caminero hit a 114mph single, after which he was pulled for a pinch hitter, Richie Palacios. Palacios immediately stole second. Although some of us speculated that Vilade, up next, would be replaced by Jake Fraley to face the right handed pitcher, but Cash stuck with Vilade, and Ryan singled Richie home. The Rays took the lead and made their manager’s decisions look like genius. Take that, “Fire Cash” twitter account.
Ian Seymour came out to pitch the eighth, and when he walked the lead off batter and fell behind 2-0 to the next batter, many of us might have been thinking “Um Kevin, seriously? Ian Seymour?” But a fly out and two strikeouts later that, too, looked like a brilliant move.
It was no surprise that Cash went to Bryan Baker to close out the 3-2 game, but for a few miserable minutes that, ironically, looked like the one move that was going to bite the team in the rear. After getting the dangerous Jose Ramirez out, Baker allowed hits to the next two batters, putting men on second and third with just one out. But Baker reached back for that something extra, and struck out the next two batters.
Here is how the game ended:
That’s five in a row, and wins in nearly every game against an American League team. Suddenly I think interleague play is the worst!
