It is hard to believe that this is the same team that recently had a six game win streak. Maybe the Rays were never that good, and the Yankees and White Sox just aren’t much competition?
Yesterday the Rays lost in part due to bad luck and less than stellar defense.
Tonight, the team fell apart just about every other way. This wasn’t bad luck. This was just terrible, no energy, no strategy, no hope baseball. Don’t let the almost respectable score fool you. This was a debacle.
Matz apparently met his match(z) in the Cincinnati lineup. In the first inning, Ely de la Cruz hit a two run home to put the Reds up 2-0. In the second inning, two Reds players each hit solo shots and it was 4-0.
Brian Anderson commented that Matz’s stuff seemed fine but his location is off. That is a very kind, nearly euphemistic way of saying the guy was nowhere near the strike zone. Three innings. Four walks. Throwing nearly more balls than strikes. I’d think most pitchers could do better blindfolded. Not only did he put the Rays in a big hole, but left a tired bullpen to get through six innings, with a day game tomorrow.
And believe me, the six bullpen innings were not pretty. Walks, hits, runs.
Altogether, the Rays 5 pitchers gave up 12 runs (include five home runs) and ten — TEN — walks. Just a disaster. The last pitcher was actually position player Ben Williamson, and he did not do any worse than the actual pitchers! A mere solo home run, practically a clean inning.
The Rays largely seemed flummoxed by Chase Burns, but then again they’ve been flummoxed in general for the last few games, and Burns is really good. In fact the only fun part of this game, in those moments in which I could pretend I wasn’t actually a Rays fan, was when they showed slow motion video of a Burns’ pitch that seemed to move in eight different directions as it crossed the plate.
The Rays managed to scatter a few singles. Jonathan Aranda managed to square one up and hit a two-run home run. But Burns was very effective for 5.2 innings, and the Cincinnati bullpen was equally tough for the Rays.
The best scoring opportunity came in the bottom of the ninth, when Kyle Nicolas, no doubt the low man in the Cincinnati bullpen (because that’s the sort of pitcher you throw in to pitch the ninth when you have a 10 run lead). Nicolas walked the bases loaded and then walked in two runs. He then gave up a very lucky (for the Rays) 2 run-double, a bloop hit that was barely fair, and made the score 12-6. But a lazy fly ball ended the rally and the game.
