Three Up, Three Down: Week One
Finally, the season has begun! The Tampa Bay Rays faced the Toronto Blue Jays in a three-game series for the first official week of baseball this season. Let’s look at what went right for the Rays and what went horribly wrong.
Three Up
1. Rays Win! Rays Win!
The Rays finished their opening series as one of 16 teams with two wins. That’s good enough for a tie for first place in the division, small sample size notwithstanding (let me have this, people!).
2. Rays Bullpen
The relievers for the Rays picked up where they left off last season, finishing the weekend with the eighth-best bullpen ERA, averaging 2.70 earned runs over 16 ⅔ innings. If you remove the rough sixth inning that Trevor Richards suffered (after having already thrown three scoreless frames), they would be second in baseball with an 0.54 ERA.
3. Right-hand Ji-Man
Everybody’s favorite South Korean first baseman toyed with the idea of becoming a switch-hitter during Summer Camp so he could become an everyday contributor for the Rays. The decision paid off in the game on Sunday, as Ji-man Choi’s second at-bat from the right side of the plate was smoked 429 feet and deposited over the wall in left-center field.
Three Down
1. Ducks On The Pond
One of the biggest problems the Rays have faced in their recent history is an inability to hit with runners on base. While they scored 14 runs during the three-game set with Toronto, they also left 23 runners on, tied for sixth-worse in baseball. Yandy Diaz was 0-5 with runners in scoring position and Kevin Kiermaier was 1-6, though his one hit was the game-winning triple in the 10th inning of Sunday’s game.
2. Cracked Aces
Two of Tampa Bay’s star pitchers did not get off to a great start (no pun intended). Opening Day starter Charlie Morton couldn’t quite locate his breaking pitches and the Blue Jays wised up early, scoring six runs on seven hits in Morton’s first inning of work. Former Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell held Toronto scoreless, but they pulled him after only two innings. While he struck out five Blue Jays, he allowed six runners while throwing 46 pitches.
3. Offensively Offensive
The Rays came out of the series batting a paltry .188, good enough for sixth-worst in the league. On the bright side, they recorded a walk in 15 percent of their plate appearances, averaging six a game, which brings the team on-base percentage up to 15th in the league.
All stats come from Fangraphs and/or Baseball Reference.
