The Brandon Morrow show, distils the Tampa Rays challenge
The Tampa Rays lost their fifth consecutive match as the Toronto Blue Jays played the cool bill of beating them with a slender lead of just 1 run in a 1 – 0 thump. The credit of ousting the home team in the match and series would have to go to Brandon Morrow. His pitching brought the opponents down to their knees, as the player registered his career best of 17 strike outs in his first shutout of the career. The maestro pitched a total of 137 times and walked only two hitters.
However, what is truly amazing about Morrow is the fact that his bid for the no hitter went up to the 9.2 innings, only to be ended by Evan Longoria who singled to the second to reach first base. The only hitter for the team had a few words to share about the moment in respect to the hard working pitcher who was fairly disappointed by the way things turned out.
“He threw a four-seam fastball away that I fouled off and I saw him shake on the pitch that I got the base hit on, so I just kind of guessed fastball away again”, the batter said. "With the walk and the runner on, that four-hole was open and it just gave me enough room."
He followed up by saying that Brandon deserved the no-hitter because of his hard work and experimental play of mixing his deadly breaking pitch with the mid 90’s fastballs to tear through the Rays’ batting line up.
Morrow was versatile in delivering the sliders at lightning speed as his pitches were dealt with great caution during the match by the strike zone hitters, often confusing the rival players. Four seam fast balls were his specialty as Dan Johnson points out, remarking positively at his opponent’s accomplishment. The pitcher would use his sliders to either strike out the hitters or make the batters come after them.
The last no hitter game for the Blue Jays came in the match in Cleveland, by Dave Stieb in 1990, while Roger Clemens registered the highest number of strike outs, of 18 in 1998, against Kansas City.
The Tampa Bay squad wasn’t much surprised by the chance of being involved in a no hitter as the side has encountered those circumstances in three other matches, Matt Garza with the first, against Detroit. Edwin Jackson, of the Arizona Diamondbacks doing the same against the Rays and finally, Dallas Bradin of the Oakland Athletics putting the team through the grinding machine for the third time in the season.
The Bill James’ metric game score for Brandon Morrow was calculated to be a complete 100 with Randy Johnson’s being the closest since 2004. The performance is locked at the 4th best single pitching exhibition since 1920. The player has now been pushed to the top of the best pitching ensemble during the season with the second rating score being 98. However, with the player falling short and joining the list of almost record breakers, the Blue Birds’ ace summarized his night with a few words. “Those things combined were more than enough to overcome the feeling of the missed no-hitter. That would have been a great feat, but I'll start at a complete-game, one-hit shutout with 17 strikeouts."
The Toronto Blue Jays registered the only run of the match through Vernon Wells who hit Andy Sonnanstine for a single down the shallow right, allowing Yunel Escobar to sprint towards the last base for the main score, giving the team a 1 – 0 victory over the second tier team of the Division.
However, the Blue Birds will be without Wells who struck his foot against the boundary for a stellar catch. The veteran hitter banged his toe against the wall and lay in pain as he was later carried back to the dugout to mark the end of the night for him. The team will look to be in top shape as they clash with the Red Sox on the 10th of august. However, as how things are going for the Rays, the management will surely urge the team to get back in form and salvage their reputation to at least go for the wildcard berth, as the Red Sox are creeping their way up the table.
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