You can't win 'em all....
Shock is the operative word in Tampa Bay, shock that Andy Aparicio was hit for 5 runs in the first 2 innings and 7 overall, and shock that the 127-win Tampa Bay Rays' season is over before it barely started in playoffs with a 9-5 loss to Detroit. It's well-known that anything can happen in the playoffs, especially in a short 5-game series, but the Rays had been immune to that gravity for several years now so it seemed like they'd never be subject to it. But they ran into an incredibly hot team in Detroit, which went 14-2 down the stretch to grab a wild card and win the wild card coming in, and well as the saying goes you can't predict baseball. In retrospect the series was lost in Game 2, when the Tigers broke a 3-3 tie in the 8th inning to keep the Rays from going up 2-0. As for today's game there isn't much that can be said. Aparicio getting tagged in the first two innings was something that hadn't happened all year in 32 regular season starts and 1 in the playoffs, but it looked like they might come back after cutting the lead to 5-4 in the 3rd and having two golden opportunities to tie or go ahead in the 4th and 5th when two men on and less than two out but they failed to convert both times. And then the dagger came in the 6th when Aparicio put the first two on and Evan Godwin poured gasoline on the fire by walking a man and then giving up a bases-clearing double to Enrique Bradfield. I tried shaking things up by bringing Joe Barker back in the lineup to replace the 0-16 Eloy Jimenez but that didn't help as Barker went 0-5 and fittingly made the final out in his final at-bat as a Ray as he'll be dealt this winter. Nate Clark had to leave again with a minor injury, so I put Jimenez in to replace him and on the first batter of the 4th Jimenez strained his hamstring making a diving catch and he too had to leave the game as his acquisition proved useless in the end (thankfully the cost wasn't much). So it's on to the offseason while fans across the country who were sick of seeing the Rays win it all every year finally get to see a new champion.
And who will the Tigers be playing in ALCS? None other than their nemesis the Texas Rangers who came back from 0-2 down to win the next 3. Texas has beaten Detroit the last three years in the playoffs in the ALDS, and now they meet one step beyond in the playoffs:
