When we came into this game, I wasn’t looking forward to the pitching matchup. Not that I didn’t trust Derek Holland to do a good job (well, OK maybe I did a little), but I knew David Price. I remembered him from the playoffs and World Series last year, and was expecting him to shut us down. Which was something we didn’t need as we seem to be just getting going again after a slump.
Much to my surprise we unloaded on Price and the Rays. Price was just destroyed, and the most telling stat of all is he allowed more walks than outs recorded. Five walks in just one inning and a third. Three hits, five walks, and six earned runs. Yeah, that was pretty awful. In all that, only one home run, but it was a big one – a three run shot to Andruw Jones. I do have to admit to being surprised by that, as I figured Price was going to keep us contained. Epic fail there.
On the flip side, Derek Holland was OK. Six runs, seven hits four earned runs. Most of the damage there was the longball. Derek allowed a solo home run to Jason Bartlett in the second. However, the one that skewed his pitching line was the three run home run to Dioner Navarro in the fifth. Take those out, and it wasn’t too bad, but you can’t base a pitching line on “just take out those two guys”.
The Rays used three relievers. The first one (Lance Cormier) also didn’t fare too great, although not nearly as bad as Price. Cormier went three innings, and gave up four hits and three earned runs. One of which was a solo home run to Nelson Cruz.
Chad Bradford was next, and didn’t give up anything, so naturally, he was in for the shortest time, just two thirds of an inning. The last reliever was Jeff Niemann, who didn’t give a home run, but did allow three more runs (on six hits).
Our offense was extra base oriented. Four doubles, a triple, and two home runs accounting for half of the 14 hits we got. Elvis Andrus & Ian Kinsler took ofers, but everyone else was on the board from the starters. David Murphy & Nelson Cruz led the way with three hits each.
Overall, a nice win. Sweep coming up on Sunday night perhaps?