Since MLB's blackout restrictions prevented any of us from actually watching the game, this recap will be nice and short.
The Rays won 4-3 behind a solid outing from "The Big Nyquil" Jeff Niemann in front of his home town. It was a start that we've almost come to expect from TBN; 7IP, 4H, 2ER, 1BB, 5K, 1HR. He didn't get many swinging strikes, but he did get a high percentage of strikes on his pitches, with only his curveball coming in at less than 50%. He pounded the strikezone quite well, as you can see in his Pitch F/X chart. Also, it looks as though Niemann was on the wrong end of some awful calls by the umpire. Look at all of the green dots in the middle of the strikezone:
The offense put up good numbers once again, but when you collect 10 hits and 7 walks you should really score more than 4 runs. The 7 walks were drawn by three players; 3 by Zobrist and 2 each by Upton and Pena.
Zobrist seems to of taken our Zobrist For Leadoff campaign to heart. In his past six games he has 11 hits and 6 walks. In those six games he's moved his OPS up 90(!) points to .798.
We don't normally do this in the recaps, but since friend of the site Jason Collette was actually at the game in Houston last night I'm going to link to his write up of it. It's more detailed than anything we could put up today;