James Shields enjoying time on mound as Tampa Bay Rays close gap on wild card berth – MLB News
James Shields formed the centre of attention on Sunday, September 11 when the Tampa Bay Rays blasted the Boston Red Sox out with a 9-1 win at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.
The strong hurler moved on to 15 wins and 10 losses in the season. He received the pitching duties for the third and the final game of the series. The player did little to disappoint manager Joe Maddon.
The hurler picked up five strike-outs, while conceding a run off seven hits in his 8.1 innings of pitching. While his stint on the mound prevented any Boston hitters from extracting a lead, the Tampa Bay hitters covered their ace as they made short work
of Jon Lester and the bullpen of the club.
Maddon however sensed trouble in the pitcher’s earlier innings. He mentioned his concerns to the press after the game ended.
"In the beginning, [Shields was] over-boogying a little bit," Maddon said. "He was trying to do too much. He was falling off the mound. He didn't have his good alignment to the plate."
On the other hand, Shields talked about his skipper jokingly as he referred to his call off from the mound in the last inning.
"Joe gave me a hard time. He was like, 'Thanks for getting me booed out there,'" Shields said. "But I told him, 'It's a good thing, man. The fans want me to go out there. That's great.' But I think that was the right decision for him to pull me in that situation.
I had a lot of pitches right there."
Tampa Bay Rays are scheduled to take on the Boston Red Sox again on September 15 and the series will be stretched over four games. The club has a chance to reach the wild card berth if they are able to sweep the series against the Boston Red Sox. Shields
will surely feature in the bout and he is expected to play in at least three outings before the regular season ends.
Tags: