Tampa Bay Rays beaten by Detroit Tigers 3-5 in series finale – MLB Update
Tampa Bay Rays were beaten by Detroit Tigers 3-5 in a thrilling encounter at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida on Sunday, July 1 in fourth and final game of their four match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
Joe Maddon will be extremely disappointed with what he has seen from the Rays over the last couple of weeks. Rays’ loss on Sunday was their seventh in last 10 games and it will be interesting to see if they can turn things around against the red hot New
York Yankees.
"It's been a really tough last couple weeks, and we need to turn it around," Tampa Bay's Ben Zobrist said. "The Yankees coming in, that's a perfect time to do it."
Credit must be given to the Tigers who dominated their opponents in three out of four games. After dropping two of three against the Texas Rangers and Pittsburgh Pirates, they outclassed the struggling Rays to finish their road trip with a decent 5-5 record.
"A good way to end it. A long road trip and we come out of it OK," Tigers’ manager Jim Leyland said.
Manager Jim Leyland will be expecting the Tigers to continue their excellent work against the Minnesota Twins to get over the .500 win percentage hump.
Tigers’ first baseman Prince Fielder and Austin Jackson played a big part in deciding the outcome of the result. Jackson drove in a tie breaking run in the sixth to give momentum to his team and Fielder extended the Tigers’ lead 5-3.
"That's a good sign for us. We battled on this road trip," Jackson said. "That just says a lot about the team. Just coming out of the funk a little bit."
For the Rays, B.J. Upton hit a sacrifice fly to centre in the first inning to put his side on the board. Hideki Matsui and Jose Molina put up a good show in the fifth inning to help Tampa Bay level the score. Starting pitcher Alex Cobb had a struggling time
on the mound as he finished with fifth loss of the season.
Tigers’ starter Drew Smyly won for the third time this season after giving up just three runs and three hits in five effective innings.
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