Some love for Connor Kirkley:
Game 1: An ugly, ugly loss that would have qualified as a heartbreaker if it actually meant something to the Rays as they fell 8-7 in 12 innings to Detroit in a game which keeps the Tigers' wild card hopes alive. The Rays blew a 5-1 lead in the middle innings, and then took a 7-6 lead into the bottom of the 10th and blew it on consecutive misplayed ground balls, each of which would have been the final out of the game. They made four errors in total, all of which contributed to Detroit runs, in perhaps their sloppiest game of the season. They had built a 5-1 lead in bizarre fashion with five solo homers off Tigers starter Alek Manoah. Ricky Widmar (#17) and Dayle Jenkins went back-to-back to lead off the game, and Jenkins (#13) and Nate Clark (#33) did likewise in the 3rd. Luis Corpus added #14 and Danny Ceja had a nice cushion to work with. But he squandered it all in the 5th, giving up his own back-to-back jacks, a 3-run homer with a man on who reached via error, and a solo shot by old friend Spencer Torkelson. And after the Rays re-took the lead in the 6th on a Jasson Dominguez sac fly, Ceja put two on with one of those reaching via a Joe Barker error, and while Nate Thompson did a good job getting out of the jam, the run still scored to tie it. Ceja finished 5 8 6 4 1 4 while Thompson went 3 1/3 scoreless with Evan Godwin getting the final two out of the 9th. The Rays thought they had won it in the 10th on back-to-back doubles from Dominguez and Bobby Witt Jr, but Jose Alvarado in the bottom of the inning had a man on 2nd with 2 out and got a grounder to Widmar, who booted it for his 2nd error of the game to put men on 1st and 3rd. And then the next batter hit a squibber in front of the plate which Corpus bobbled, allowing the tying run to score. Jon Whiteleather admirably got Alvarado out of an 11th-inning jam, but left with a man on 2nd and two out in the 12th, and Mike Mooney came in to face the lefty Phil Arias (who earlier hit the 3-run homer off Ceja) and gave up a single to score the winning run.
Game 2: The Rays lost their second in a row to Detroit as they were dominated by longtime Tiger ace Kumar Rocker in a 3-0 loss. Rocker shut them down like few pitchers have this season, going 7.1 3 0 0 3 10. The only real threat they had was in the 9th when they put two on with two out and Eloy Jimenez at the plate, but Eloy grounded out to 1st to end the game. Alec Sachais started and gave up a homer to Enrique Bradfield (a Rays-killer) to lead off the game and struggled some, going 6 7 3 3 3 7. Brad Ballmann pitched two scoreless innings (!), allowing only a hit, in his best outing in ages. With the Angels losing the win has Detroit within one game of the second wild card.
Game 3: The Rays salvaged the third game of the series and a split of the season series with Detroit thanks to a 5-2 win behind Andy Aparicio. The righty bounced back from a 4-runs allowed loss in his previous start to go 8 4 2 2 0 9 and improve to 18-2, 1.67. Jordan Diaz had a scoreless 9th to nail down save #22. The star on offense once again was Connor Kirkley, 3-3 today with a solo HR (#29) to make it 2-0 in the 5th. Jakob Runnels got things going by singling in Kirkley in the 3rd, and Ricky Widmar's sac fly and Dayle Jenkins' RBI double after the Kirkley homer made it 4-0 in the 5th. Nate Clark added an RBI single in the 9th after Detroit had closed within 4-2.
Team record: 109-30. Next up: An off-day the finally back home again to face the Red Sox in a weekend series.
Durham Playoff Update: Playoff time for the Bulls again, who went 87-53 and ran away with their division. Their opponent for the opening series is Lehigh Valley, the Phillies' AAA affiliate and they took Game 1 from the IronPigs tonight 5-4 in Durham. They rallied from deficits of 2-0 and 4-2 to pick up the win on Angelo Romo's 7th-inning sac fly after Omar Rodriguez doubled Melvin Gutierrez to 3rd. Omar had a 2-run double in the 5th to tie it up at 4. Malachi Benford started and was fair at 6 6 4 4 1 6, but the Durham bullpen was outstanding with Chris Hicks whiffing all 4 men he faced to get the win and Danny Medina retiring the final 5 IronPigs in order for the save. Gil Wayne starts Game 2 tomorrow.