Rays 6, Angels 1: Chris Archer Is Amazing

Since the Rays are on the west coast and I'm an old man who falls asleep before midnight, this recap is going to be abbreviated. There's little to say, though, if you watched the game. We all know what the story is: Chris Archer.

The young right-hander struck out a career-high and team-record tying fifteen batters and walked none in his eight innings. The only real blemish on his outing was a fourth inning home run from the red-hot Albert Pujols. Yesterday David Price tweeted that Archer had the best slider in baseball. Harold Reynolds and Billy Ripken, the boobs on MLB Tonight, disagreed. It's tough to empirically decided who has the best so and so, but, for at least last night, no pitch in baseball was better than the slider of Chris Archer.

Eleven of his fifteen strikeouts came via the slider, and it generated a whiff percentage of thirty-four. Contrast that with the fifteen percent whiff rate on his excellent fastball. Despite what the Rays' broadcast radar gun tells you, the slider doesn't sit in the low 90s, but it does call 87-89 home, which is getting into Randy Johnson territory. Archer is now tied for second in fWAR among pitchers at 2.4, just a hair behind Max Scherzer's 2.7. He has the highest K% (32.7) in baseball and the seventh-lowest ERA (2.01). I know Dallas Keuchel and Sonny Gray have lower ERA's, but not by much. It's time to start thinking about Archer possibly starting the All-Star game. The Matt Garza trade looks like the steal of the century so far.

As for the offense, all the runs they would need came off the bat of Logan Forsythe in the first inning. With a runner on and two outs, Forsythe juuuuuust put one inside the foul pole a few rows back. They'd pick up insurance runs in the sixth on singles from Jake Elmore and Asdrubal Cabrera, and Rene Rivera added a run scoring single in the ninth.