Rays Ride Pitching in Victory against Indians

Tampa Bay will forever be scrappy. They will never shake the term. Like if I lost a ton of weight, I am sure people would still look at me as 'the big guy.' Basically, that's my way of telling Tampa Bay, I can relate.  But the Rays have developed a model of consistency for baseball as they have made the playoffs four of the last six years. Tampa Bay beat Cleveland last night, 4-0, to face AL East rival Boston in the NLDS. The Rays did it again with great pitching and will continue to delay returning home for awhile.

Last night's game featured two of the better up-and-coming pitchers in the game with Alex Cobb and Danny Salazar. When we recapped the Tampa Bay-Texas game, I expressed my concerns with the young pitchers thinking there was an opportunity one or both of these pitchers would get tight leading to a higher scoring game. That did not happen, instead Cobb showed he could deal with a raucous road crowd and carry his team to another do-or-die victory. 

Cobb did not really deal last night, but he looked like the Bill Gates version of Claudio Vargas. For those unfamiliar, Vargas pitched for the Brewers twice in his career and he had a thing where he would load the bases with under two outs then find a way to get out of it. The Rays had a 3-0 lead thanks to a home run by postseason legend Delmon Young and a two-run double by Desmond Jennings. Cobb faces his first problem in the fourth after giving up a double to Carlos Santana, an infield hit from Micheal Brantley and walked Ryan Raburn made the bases loaded with one out. Cobb got Asdrubal Cabrera to ground into a double play getting him out of the inning.  

Cobb continued his wizardry in the fifth inning. Once again, he got himself into trouble putting runners are first and third with no outs. Michael Bourn, the lead-off hitter, stepped up to the dish only to strike out which I made the comment reminded me of the 2013 Brewers season in general.  People thought of other ways the Indians could make this like the Brewers season..

@10iskristin @SnoTap12 or they would have realized it's september so they should give up on sucking and win and lose their draft slot.
— Curt Hogg (@YouAStupidHogg) October 3, 2013

@SnoTap12 Or made an out at home. #contactplay @10iskristin
— Dan Maciejewski (@dmaciejewski) October 3, 2013

The Indians managed to the Brewers thing by not driving in a single run and once again, Cobb found a way out of it. This game will be a definite 'what if' for Cleveland as they had runners on third multiple teams in this game and they could not find a way to drive in a single run. There were many missed opportunities throughout the game including a big Nick Swisher strikeout with two on in the seventh. Cobb might have dazzled with runners on, but the Indians did not have the one big hit. 

Whenever people are talking about who can win the World Series, they point out that 'pitching wins championships' and as for the starters, who has it better than Tampa Bay?  David Price, Matt Moore, Chris Archer and Cobb is as formidable as any team left in the postseason. They will trot out Moore and Price at Fenway this week in what figures to be a great series. 

Tampa Bay ended the year on the road meaning they have not gone back to Tampa in the last two weeks. They will spend the weekend in Boston before finally heading home to a Game 3 on Monday afternoon or night. The Rays might always be the scrappy one, but a team can still be strong while being scrappy.

Charlie.