Kevin Cash takes the ball from Brandon Gomes.
The GBT - The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
Yankees 4, RAYS 1 (boxscore)
THE GOOD: Evan Longoria’s streak of 7 straight hits was snapped but he remains hot, picking up 2 more hits.
THE BAD: Brandon Gomes just didn’t have it last night. Coming into the game in the bottom of the 5th with the bases loaded and 2 outs, he promptly walked the first batter he faced. Then, after the Rays tied the game in the top of the 6th, Kevin Cash decided to stick with Gomes and things imploded. He gave up a home run and a double to 2 of the 4 batters he faced in the 6th before being pulled. Gomes did throw 30 pitches in 2 innings just 2 nights prior to last night. And last night his velocity was off on his out-pitch, the splitter. It averaged 83.5 mph in the first game and just 81.2 mph last night. The result was that is was not sinking as much…Everett Teaford made his Rays debut relieving Gomes and he wasn’t much better. Maybe we can chalk it up to being a little nervous in his first outing, but there was little there to give you a lot of confidence moving forward that he can be an asset in the ‘pen.
THE TELLING: The Rays are scheduled to play in Baltimore this weekend, however, riots and protests in Baltimore have put the location of that series in doubt. One idea being tossed around is to have the series played at The Trop and moving a series later in the year up to Camden Yards…Prior to yesterday’s loss, the Rays were at No. 8 in the MLB Network power rankings…Jake McGee will start a rehab assignment today…Xavier Cedeno, acquired yesterday in a trade with the Dodgers, has not yet been added to the 25-man roster, so nobody has been demoted yet…Last night’s game was the Rays’ first outdoor game all season after playing the first 19 games at the Trop, in Miami, and in Toronto.
THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- Chris Archer is the best pitcher in the American League. [BI Sports]
- More on the early-season success of Chris Archer. [USA Today]
- The Rays jump 4 spots to No. 5 in the latest FoxSports.com power rankings and now are given 62.5% chance of making the playoffs. [FoxSports.com]
- Ben Zobrist is out 4-6 weeks after having knee surgery. [Yahoo! Sports]
- DOWN ON THE FARM [boxscores] Matt Buschmann gave up 2 runs in 6 innings in Durham’s 7-4 win. 3B Taylor Motter had the big hit, a 2-run double in the midst of a 6-run 6th inning. He drove in 3. Mikie Mahtook had a triple and a walk. C Luke Maile had 3 hits…Jared Mortensen gave up just 1 run in 7 innings, but Montgomery lost 5-4, giving up 2 runs in the 9th. Richie Shaffer had a single and 2 walks. LF Johnny Field hit his 4th home run…Willy Adames had 2 doubles and a walk and drove in 2 in Charlotte’s 6-5 win. DH Maxx Tissenbaum had the 2-run, walk-off single in the 9th.
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17 Comments
I found it interesting that Staats and BA were questioning Cash's move to go with Teaford for the rest of the game, only down by two runs. I thought they had a valid point.
It kind of had the aroma of "this doesn't feel like a winnable game"... and it didn't. For whatever reason it just felt like they weren't going to win.
The Yankees have the Rays' number that's for sure.
That was the first time I felt like Cash has given up on a game. Under JoMa, we had one of those per series.
Need to get the lead before Betances gets out of the pen. He's impressive.
….and with all those empty seats in Yankee stadium last night, the national media will once again bring up mediocre attendance as the prime reason that the Bronx Bombers could be headed to Montreal, sooner rather than later.
The attendance, according to mlb.com was 34,590.
The attendance, according to mlb.com, is B.S.
They list season tickets as tickets sold and therefore as people in attendance. We know that number to be a farce because half of that number would still be an aggressive estimate of butts in seats last night.
Longoria may have had two hits, but he sure missed an opportunity to drive in some runs with the bases loaded early in the game by striking out against a mediocre starter. You have to make contact in that situation with less than two outs.
The thing about the relief pitching is that it was the first of a 3 game set and we were in a tough spot with the bases loaded and possibly half the game left to cover. Gomes was OK not perfect but he's had a decent year. As far as Teaford goes by the time he got his normal lefty work done we were already down by 2 and in low leverage land.
And the fact remains that we only scored one run so the pen wasn't the problem in this loss.
Karns starts have led to games of the opponent scoring 6, 5, 5 and 5 runs
So a Karns/Gomes/Teaford combo yielding 4 was decent.
He aint Archer at this point if we score 1 run in his starts we will lose 97% of the time.
If the Baltimore series gets moved to the Trop, the Rays would strike a nice approach if they offered exchanges for the other O's series to season ticket holders and then some variant of the free game approach they used at the end of the 2011 season (also against the Orioles I think).
In particular, the Rays should try to engage the African American community that is due south of the ballpark and make some outreach there. One of the problems with the Rays attendance is that the community that can walk to the games doesn't seem to have much engagement with the team outside of some employees.
Why should they reach out to the African American community???
Isn't that a racist approach? To signal out that particular segment of the population because members of their ethnic group 1,100 miles away are acting like idiots is just an exasperation of the problem.
Make some outreach with the African American community south of the stadium? What? Why? Is that community somehow unaware that an MLB team has been playing baseball a mile away for the past 18 years?
Exactly -- they draw very few African American fans from the primarily African American neighborhoods lying within the 3 miles due south of the stadium, yet they have had a host of African American stars. When the Trop has hosted basketball events (in particular an NBA exhibition had a lot more African American people ).
My point is as much financial as anything -- they have no seats sold for the weekend, so get out there and use this as an opportunity to grow your business. Get more people exposed to this Rays team. Open up the gates like they did a few Septembers ago and get people in there. Maybe they'll come back.
Ok, now I get it, you're just trolling. Lol good one, you had me going for a minute there!
Wow........ just wow.
Anyone else notice Dewayne's best line of the past couple of years?
BA talking about Isolated Power & new stats in general.
Dewayne chimes in: "I'm partial to the old Staats, because I'm one of them."
I love those guys.
Cork mentioned the short rest over on BI in the Archer article
"Short rest" is the reason he's pitching like Cy Young now!