Tampa Bay Rays take two of three from Boston Red Sox - series review

April 10, 12:04 PMTampa Bay Rays ExaminerRob Quinn

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Garza feels like he owns the Red Sox AP/Michael Dwyer

The Rays got the job done in the opening series, taking two of three from the Red Sox at Fenway Park. The Sox are a serious threat to wrestle the AL East title away and this series will not make them go away, but it was still important. With a confidence embodied by Thursday’s winning pitcher Matt Garza, the Rays made a statement on the road, where the Rays were 40-41 last year and 2-7 at Fenway. Here’s a review of the series, unit-by-unit, for the Rays.

Starting Pitching:

Shields, Kazmir, and Garza combined to go 13-18 with a 4.41 ERA on the road last year, allowing a home run every six innings. In this series, they combined to go 2-1 with a 3.44 ERA and allowed only two homers in 18 innings. What a great start on improving last year’s road difficulties! Grade: A-

Relief Pitching:

J.P. Howell struggled and needed Grant Balfour to come in and bail him out of a mess in the eighth inning of Wednesday’s win. Troy Percival gave up a home run to Jason Varitek – the first batter he faced this season – but held on to save his first chance of the season in the series finale. I may have to institute a Troy Percival fright meter on the site here. That first game was probably an 8.2 out of 10. He gave up the home run to Varitek, and then walked Ortiz with two outs, bringing Youkilis, 3 for 3 on the day, to the plate as the potential winning run. He did get a 400-foot fly out to center from Youkilis to end the game, but Rays fans were still left checking their blood pressure. The bullpen stats in this series: 7.1 IP, 3.68 ERA, 1 HR, 6 K, 2 for 2 SV opps, 3 BB, 3 of 4 inherited runners stranded. The bullpen was not spectacular, but they certainly did their job in this series. Grade: B+

Defense:

The Rays made two errors in Thursday’s game. Riggans’ attempt to throw Ellsbury out at second went into centerfield for an error and somehow Carlos Pena airmailed Garza on an underhand toss to first base. Fortunately for the Rays, neither of these miscues led to any runs on the board for Boston. Despite the error, Pena played brilliantly at first base in the series. He is just a pleasure to watch out there. Matt Joyce and Gabe Kapler made all the plays they needed to make in center filling in for B.J. Upton, and Longoria was out-of-this-world at third base. Grade: A-

Offense:

Overall, the Rays hit .257 with an OBP of .342 for the series. Those numbers put them very close to last season’s .260 average and .340 OBP. Considering the Rays put those numbers up against three of the best starting pitchers in the league, I would consider the series a success. Beckett shut the Rays down, but they impressively lit up Lester and Dice-K. The Rays hit five homers including two by Longoria, stole four bases, and drew 13 walks. No complaints. Grade: B+

Manager:

Maddon made the nice call on the safety squeeze, and I absolutely loved the double steal on the first pitch from Masterson in the first game. He seems to have the team ready to pick up right where they left off in 2008. What can I say, I have no criticism for him. Grade: A

Offensive MVP of the series: Longoria. He hit .429 with two homers and five RBI. The league already knows how well he hits the fastball, but both of his homers in this series came on breaking pitches away. Opponents are going to have a very hard time finding a way to pitch to him if he keeps this up.

Pitching MVP of the series: Matt Garza. No disrespect to Scott Kazmir, but I just love the way Garza went out there in the rubber match of the series and confidently shut the Red Sox down. His demeanor out there borders on cockiness and arrogance, which I’m sure gets under the skin of Red Sox fans, but you cannot argue with his seven rock-solid innings of work.

The Rays open up a three game weekend set at Camden Yards tonight at 7:05 on SUN Sports. The pitching matchup is Andy Sonnanstine versus former Ray Mark Hendrickson.

Jason Bartlett hits:  4

Jason Bartlett groundball singles between short and third:  1

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What do you think of the Rays after three games? Let me know in a comment.

Have a great Rays story idea for me? Want to go riverboat gambling this weekend (it’s what we do)? E-mail me at raysexaminer@live.com

Tune in to Speaking of Sports 2.0 Sunday nights from 7-9 p.m. The show will be taking a one-week hiatus due to Easter, but join us when we return on Sunday April 19. Tampa Bay Sports Examiner Ted Fleming, Althea Pashman and I are the three co-hosts and the show airs on Sarasota’s WSRQ 1220 AM and you can listen live right here.