The Rays Tank: Alex Torres Sharp Once Again

Tampa Bay’s six game winning streak was snapped yesterday as the Indians shutout the Rays 5-0. Chris Archer had his 2013 debut with the Rays and it was less than stellar. Steve recapped the game and discussed Archer’s outing here.

The silver lining in yesterday’s game was Alex Torres. Torres threw four scoreless innings, allowing only one hit while walking one and striking out six. All of this while running on only about 90 minutes of sleep. Todd Kalas interviewed Torres before the game and asked how he found out about the call up. Torres said that he was asleep when his roommate, Alex Colome, woke him up and said that Bulls’ coach, Charlie Montoyo, was calling for Torres and that he needed to get up and go to Cleveland for Saturday’s game. Josh Lueke was optioned to Durham to make room for Torres on the roster.

Alex Torres has been phenomenal for the Rays in his three appearances this year. Yesterday, he came in against one of the hottest teams in the leagues and completely shut them down. He threw 52 pitches over four innings, 35 of them for strikes with 11 of the swinging variety. His fastball command was marvelous and his velocity averaged around 93 MPH, maxing out at 95 MPH, per Brooks Baseball.

Torres’ previous appearance with the Rays was on May 18^th against the Orioles, where he picked up the win as he threw four hitless innings, only walking two while striking out three and not allowing any runs. In that outing, he threw 49 pitches, of which 31 were strikes and seven were swinging, per Brooks Baseball.

In nine games with Durham, Torres has a 2-2 record with 46 innings pitched. He’s only given up two homeruns all season and has allowed only 18 earned runs and walked 21 batters. Torres has also collected 61 strikeouts and hitters are only managing a .200 batting average against him, per Durham Bulls.

There’s no doubt that Torres has been the best call-up the Rays have seen from Durham so far this season. I think he definitely needs to be given a shot in the rotation as opposed to being held in the bullpen.

The Rays finish the series in Cleveland today as Jeremy Hellickson takes the mound against Zach McAllister. Hellickson really needs to step up and deliver a solid outing.

Links:

-The day after Fredi Gonzales said he was contemplating a demotion to AAA for BJ Upton, Bossman Junior went 2-for-4 and hit the game-winning RBI single for the Braves.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Someone’s excited. <a href="http://t.co/mDfZsJG8e9" title="http://twitter.com/MLB/status/341026052308598785/photo/1">twitter.com/MLB/status/341…</a></p>&mdash; MLB (@MLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB/status/341026052308598785">June 2, 2013</a></blockquote>

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-A Yankees fan was assaulted at Camden Yards earlier this week during an Orioles-Nationals game at the park. The fan is in serious condition and suffered a fractured skull after being punched in the head and falling over a railing onto the cement five feet below. Unreal.

-Aaron Harang of the Mariners overthrew his catcher by quite a bit while trying to get an out, allowing a run to score on this humorous play.

-Speaking of the Mariners, some of their pitchers recently stopped by the MLB FanCave and sang karaoke with fans after providing them with some fresh lemonade. <iframe src='http://mlbfancave.mlb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?content_id=27519739&topic_id=19224580&click=fancave_video&width=400&height=254&property=mlb' width='400' height='254' frameborder='0'>Your browser does not support iframes.</iframe>

-Tim Beckham made this play on Friday night which earned him number seven on the SportsCenter Top 10 Plays of the day. Per the Durham Bulls, that was the third time this season that their team has been featured on the SCTopTen.

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