After a three game series in which they scored exactly three (3) runs over 27 innings, I think I’m going to need to see proof of life photos for the Rays offense.
We’ll get to the errors and pitching mistakes, I promise, but when a team scores only one very late run, we need to start and end our critique with the hitters.
Today, the Rays got eleven hits and walked once, so it’s not like they had no opportunities. But almost all those hits were singles, and nearly all from the same three guys (Vilade,
Caminero and Simpson) so those guys singled their way on to base and no one could drive them in. The only extra base hits came in the bottom of the ninth, at which point the game was entirely out of reach and no doubt the Rays were facing whoever the White Sox use for mop up duty.
Rays hitters didn’t strike out much, but they kept pounding the ball into the turf, grounding out twelve times, two of which were turned into double plays.
The game got off to an inauspicious start. Jax got into first inning trouble, with two men on base. But there were already two outs and it would have been possible to get out of the top of the first scoreless. But alas. First, Jax bobbled a not very challenging dribbler and could not get a runner at first, which allowed a run to score. Then the infield somehow failed to get either runner in a double steal that plated run number two.
I usually only post Rays highlights in these recaps, but I’m so disgusted with this inning I’m going to post a low light:
The White Sox scored again on a Benintendi solo home run in the fourth, but the Rays had a good chance to get back in the game in the bottom of that inning, loading the base on three singles (with an out coming on the one really well hit ball, 111 mph from Caminero, caught at the warning track). But neither Williamson nor DeLuca could get a run home.
Craig Kimbrel relieved Jax in the sixth, and I was hopeful when he got two quick outs. Was this going to be…a clean inning? Well, he gave up a walk. And a second walk. OK, could it at least be a scoreless inning? Nope. Hard hit double, two RBI, 5-0 Chicago.
But wait, the Rays came back swinging in the bottom of the inning. Once more, they loaded the based on three singles. With two outs, Ben Williamson came up to try to get the Rays on the board. But he grounded out weakly to short. Inning over.
And for the finishing touch, newcomer Alex Cook, pitching his second inning, yielded a two-run homer to Everson Pereira.
Oops that was not the finishing touch. Because Cook was replaced by Chris Roycroft, and HE gave up another two-run homer to Miguel Vargas, and giving the White Sox their eighth and ninth runs.
The Rays offense avoided total humiliation when Ben Williamson hit a solo home run in the ninth, and it was a little fun watching three White Sox fielders do a ninth-inning Keystone Kops routine tracking down a foul ball (unfortunately for the Rays one of them did catch it, fortunately for all the them, no one got hurt). Too little, too late.
