Game 1: The opener at Publix Park featured a matchup of the pitchers who finished 1-2 for last year's AL Cy Young in Chicago's Omar Guerrero and Tampa Bay's Gordie Ager, and after today's 9-1 Rays rout some will be asking for a recount. The Rays jumped all over Guerrero in a 4-run 2nd and scored 5 off him on 11 hits in 2 1/3 innings while Ager was in fine form, going 6 1 0 0 3 6 to improve to 8-3. Dave Frick's 3-run homer (#5) in the 2nd was the big blow while Jose Castillo was 4-5 with an RBI and Doug Johns and Jose Mendez were each 3-5 with 2 RBI.
We made a trade after the opener, moving a fixture of the pitching staff who isn't quite the hurler he used to be:
Mendoza spent parts of 8 years with us and was absolutely brilliant in 2041-42 when he went a combined 35-7 and earned 8 WAR. But injuries have sapped him of his control (which was never great to start with) and some of his effectiveness, and he had essentially devolved into a mop-up man making $7.5M. We're eating 90% of the contract in this deal and the "prospects" we got are more suspects, but it was that or release him as we needed to make room for the returning Jon Cunningham. I could have sent down Ismael Vargas again, but it's time to give Vargas a run as a lefty setup guy and see what we really have there.
Game 2: The bullpen didn't fare well today in a 10-inning, 4-2 loss to the White Sox. First, Sean Forbes blew his 3rd save and gave up his 5th homer of the season already after only allowing one of each all of last year when he gave up a 9th-inning homer to tie it at 2, and then Dave Lugo (1-2) got knocked around for two runs without retiring anybody in the 10th. As a result they wasted a good start from Joel Gird (6 4 1 1 0 3). Doug Johns' 2-run homer in the 6th (#18) was all the offense they could manage.
Game 3: The Rays blew a 5-0 lead yet still came back to win 8-7 with some walk-off magic in the 9th on a 2-run Doug Johns shot (#19). Jose Mendez single-handedly gave them that 5-0 lead with a 2-run single and a 3-run HR (#4) and Greg Bookhart was dealing, fanning 9 White Sox over 4 shutout innings. But he suddenly couldn't get anyone out in the 5th, and after Caleb Ramos let a couple of his runners in it was 6-5 Chicago and Bookhart finished 4.2 8 6 6 1 9. The Chicago lead expanded to 7-5 before Seth Williams homered (#12) to make it 7-6 before Johns took White Sox closer Walt Klopfer deep to walk it off. Jon Harbour (2-0) picked up the win with 2 scoreless innings of relief.
Team record: 45-17. Next up: Oakland visits for 4 games over the weekend including a scheduled doubleheader on Saturday.