To open the game, Brendan Ryan hit a ball up the middle. Reid Brignac snatched it up and fired a low throw to first. Chris Richard saw the ball bounce off his glove, booted it into right, and was slow in recovery. Ryan turned second and got to third. Scott Kazmir looked on in bewilderment. That set the tone nicely for the rest of the game.
A few batters later the Rays were down 3-0 on a Ryan Ludwick homerun.
Kazmir threw around 25 pitches in the first, a bit less in the second, and was looking at 55ish after three. His line looks pretty poor, and I failed to keep a running tally on the variety of pitches seen - blame the NCAA tournament as well as the BtB chat - but Rick Ankiel's homer came on a slider that soared over the middle of the plate. Kazmir did seem to use the slider, even against righties, but I couldn't give you an accurate breakdown of how many or the consensus on how they looked.
Some other observations:
Pat Burrell hit another homerun.
Jason Isringhausen pitched pretty well and mixed his pitches well.
Brian Shouse needs work, and unfortunatey that has to come against some righties.
Brignac and Adam Kenney looked far superior today turning the double play today than they did in Clearwater a few weeks ago.
Late add: Kazmir apparently had the flu, but opted to start anyways, simply to keep up with his arm strength and not fall behind. Basically: he didn't care about the results, he just wanted the work. Makes sense.