chw42

True, if we can finish the 14 game stretch against contenders at 7-7 I'd consider it a decent showing. It just sucks cause it feels like we've kind of said "fuck it" in 3 of the last 4.

Need to at least take 2 in Toronto. This team needs TA to play.

Rays official scorer is atrocious. He called the Phillips error a double. TA got his single taken away on the first AB of the series on something very similar.

Good god the Rays are lucky as shit.

Had we kept this at 3-0, this might still be a game considering how we've looked against Fleming.

Team is now 1-5 in games TA hasn't played in since the ASB. We've scored a grand total of 13 runs in those 6 games. The lone win was mostly because Berrios got tired and completely lost it in the 7th inning of a double header.

This is continuing on some of the discussion that was going on in the game thread. Vaughn has hit an atrocious .043 with runners in scoring position and less than 2 outs and we're obviously wondering...how? How does a guy who looks so good the rest of the time be so horrible when it really matters? With RISP and 2 outs, Vaughn is striking out 28.6% of the time and walks only 4.1% of the time. This is in comparison to a 20.6% K rate and 10.6% walk rate with no runners on. It's like he's a completely different hitter up there. But wait, that's not all. Below are the pitch profiles he faces in these 2 scenarios. The first one is with RISP and 2 outs and second is with nobody on. Notice how the pie looks pretty different? That's because with no runners on, Vaughn sees some type of fastball almost 60% of the time. He only sees a slider on 23.6%. With RISP and 2 outs, he sees a slider 43.7% of the time. That's a huge difference in pitch profile. Vaughn's numbers on sliders: .136 AVG with a 35.4% K rate. Vaughn's numbers on fastballs: .344 with a 12.8% K rate. Most likely explanation: when the going gets tough, teams follow the scouting report a bit more and possibly throw pitchers who have better sliders against Vaughn. Who, despite his improvement this year vs. righties and sliders, still struggles mightily against them.

It doesn't help we're basically throwing games with the lineups we put out there sometimes in the rubber match. This is pre-TA being banged up too.

Can't believe he layed off both of those.

TLR intentionally walking everyone this series.

Watching that AB to Meadows just now, whose idea was it for Bummer to throw him a sinker on the first pitch on Friday? You gotta slider him to death if you got a lefty pitching, especially one with as good of a slider as Bummer.

I'm not sure how he's so bad. He swings at absolute crap when he's got runners on base.

Looked like they wanted to pitch around him and he still struck out...

I'm saying it won't matter cause AV can't hit with RISP and 2 outs.

Vaughn up with 2 outs and RISP...might as well have just sent Eloy there.

Do you throw a slider? Can you throw it on the outside corner? Good cause then you can pitch well against the White Sox!

Cabrera hit his 500th homer

We caught a break and still couldn't capitalize. This offense is snooze worthy.

Hernandez is really good at hitting the ball hard foul.

Hernandez knocked the ball out on the back swing, he's out.

Even the Orioles scored a run off him in his first outing with the Rays. We seem to just suck against guys who have good sliders/cutters.

Lopez wasn't bad today, despite the 3 ER. But I think it shows that you can't be a real successful starter by throwing only 2 pitches. The Rays just sat on his slider.

The Rays can turn any reliever into something. Meanwhile we're ruining a guy who had the best season of all time as a reliever before he got traded to us.

Maybe Tony will finally start playing regular lineups when we don't have a 10+ game lead. Cleveland has a chance to go on a big winning streak here considering they play the Rangers at home next.

He's given up one well hit ball all game. He had a ton of luck his last start, but not so much today.