Tampa Bay Rays tied with Pittsburgh Pirates 3-3 – MLB Spring Training
Tampa Bay Rays tied with Pittsburgh Pirates 3-3 at the McKechnie Field in Bradenton, Florida on Friday, March 30 in their Grapefruit League encounter of the 2012 Major League Baseball Spring Training Session.
For the Pirates, Matt Hague put up a fine show as he had two hits including a towering home run to help his team secure a draw with the Rays. Hague is looking to secure the final starting spot on Pirates’ bench and the way he conducted himself on Friday
can certainly make the management make a difficult decision ahead of the regular season.
The striker also had a double and he has now improved his spring average to .383, leading the Pirates with five home runs. The hard hitting Hague had a decent time on the plate last season in Triple A League and he will be competing with Josh Harrison and
Yamaico Navarro for the available spot.
"All three of those guys have done well," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. "Matt's swinging the bat as well as anybody in camp -- against left-handed pitching, against right-handed pitching, with extra-base hits. He's really taken good ownership of his
at-bats."
For the Rays, Matt Moore allowed just one runs and three hits over six inning pitched.
"I definitely needed to get 90 pitches out of my body today," Moore said. "We fell behind some hitters, but we were able to get to six innings, get up and down six times and get 90 pitches, so it was nice."
The game that was played on an extremely competitive note had to be called off after both sides ran out of pitchers.
The Rays will be very disheartened by the face they missed another winning opportunity. Joe Maddon and his players have looked a bit out of sorts since the start of 2012 Spring Training. Rays’ fans had hopes from their team before this spring.
However, considering Rays’ poor 8-16 record this spring, the fans must have lost their faith in the Twins. The Rays will be hoping to put the pieces of the puzzle together before the Opening Day to win back their supporters’ hearts. It will be interesting
to see if the Rays can up their game play during the regular season to change the course of fate.
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