Tampa Bay Rays shutout Oakland Athletics 5-0 – MLB Update
Tampa Bay Rays put up another outstanding performance at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg Florida as they shutout the Oakland Athletics 5-0 on Thursday, August 23 in the opening game of their three match series.
Rays’ pitching rotation once again laid the foundations of an impressive victory. In some ways, the likes of David Price and Alex Cobb have fueled Tampa Bay back to the top of American League East Division standing. With consistent performances after the
All Star Break, the Rays have certainly improved their chances of reaching the playoffs.
Manager Joe Maddon, in particular, should be given the credit for the way he has handled all sort of situations this season. The Rays needed to find self belief in second half of the season and the skipper helped them using all his experience.
Starting pitcher Cobb made the difference on Thursday evening, tossing up his first complete game of the season. In his nine high class innings, he did not give up any runs and struck-out eight batters. His effort against the A’s also improved his ERA to
4.32. It will be interesting to see if he can continue his dominance on the mound in his upcoming starts.
"All the pressure goes away," he said. "You don't have to be fine, you can just go ahead and attack hitters. Once I got up by five, my main thought was to go as deep as I could and make them hit fastballs."
"Nothing worked the last time. And to his credit, he just threw that in the trash can and did this tonight," Rays’ manager Joe Maddon said.
"It's great to see a teammate go out there and come back from struggling and really carry the team like he did tonight," Joyce said. "I'm really happy for him and really proud of him."
Ryan Roberts put Tampa Bay on the board with a sacrifice fly hit to centre. Matt Joyce and Evan Longoria also made useful contribution to help their team build on the lead. Joyce doubled to deep right in the fifth and Longoria earned an RBI single to centre
in the fifth.
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