Rays thrash the Rangers 6-4 in the series opener
The Tampa Bay Rays recorded their first win over the Texas Rangers on Monday when they clinched a 2 run lead in the bottom 8th to put the visiting Western Division team in a serious predicament. The victory marked the home team’s resurgence to the top of the East Division standings as the New York Yankees dropped their win to the Detroit Tigers.
Tampa Rays went in to the game with a win over the Baltimore Orioles in their previous fixture. David Price was back in the line-up as the starting pitcher and was looking for a first ever American League 16th win of the season. With a record of 15 wins and 5 loses, the pitcher looked to advance his form in the game on bringing out an astonishing performance against the Rangers. The match however, didn’t fare well for the player as he got hit around the ball park on five occasions, conceding 2 runs and 5 walks.
The Rangers brought on Cliff Lee for the fixture. The move brought on a classic match-up between two American League All Star players. With the two pitchers facing off in Tropicana Field, in front of 18,319 fans, the match was hyped up by game analysts and the media to be a stunning display of baseball play in recent times. Unfortunately, Cliff Lee’s recent trend of consecutive losses in visiting stadiums met a new high with a third from yesterday’s performance. He pitched for 7.2 innings, throwing the ball 98 times and striking out 10 players. He allowed 9 hits and 6 runs to blow his team’s chances away for a victory. However, things looked different before the bottom 8th. Lee was tortured in his final 0.2 innings as he gave up 4 runs and 5 hits.
The scoring started with the Carlos Pena and Sean Rodriguez who got their run to the final base off Willy Aybar’s single to the right centre in the bottom 5th. This brought up the first two runs for the Rays and opened up the game for the spectators. The Rangers responded in the top 7th as Bengie Molina opened up the scoring account through a run to the finish line off Mitch Moreland’s grounder into double play. David Murphy followed Molina to the dugout through Elvis Andrus’ infield single. This evened the score line and brought the teams to a deadlock with only two more innings remaining.
The Rangers would speed into gear again when J Arias scored off a Vladimir Guerrero grounder to double play. Jorge Cantu, positioned on the third base would later score as well when Bengie Molina singled to the left. This firmly put the visitors on top with 2 more runs in the innings, changing the score line to 2 Tampa Bay - 4 Texas.
That all changed when B.J. Upton replied for the Rays with a run off Carl Crawford’s grounder to the fielder’s choice on second. With Jason Bartlett on second base and Crawford on the first, pressure started piling on Cliff Lee. When Evan Longoria walked on to the bag, the game shifted onto high gear as the match started turning its head on the critics. Longoria connected on Lee’s pitch for a single and Bartlett scored easily to diminish the visitor’s lead. However, the action didn’t stop there as Carlos Pena banged a single to the centre. That resulted in Crawford getting through the last base with a run, giving the team a lead. Ben Zobrist would later follow on with a hit, which led to Longoria’s run. The tally, 4 Texas – 6 Rangers, now favouring the home team, the game changed completely.
Unable to convert in the top 9th, the Rangers went down with a defeat. The Tampa Bay side on the other hand won the first of the series and put themselves 5 games away for the wildcard berth. For spectators across the country, this series will look to put many on the edge of their seats. Both clubs are high on morale and have serious fire power to alter their fates in Major League Baseball. One wonders what the end of the series will spell out.
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