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When a Major League Baseball team trusts someone to be the ace of their staff, they expect said ace to go longer than three innings. They expect said ace to be able to control, not only his pitches, but his emotions enough to not blow up in the first inning, game in and game out.
Six earned runs on eight hits over three innings is unacceptable. This team is too talented to continually have to fight an uphill battle to overcome Chris Archer's shortcomings. If the Rays plan on competing for a Wild Card spot this season, this cannot continue to happen. I don't know the answer. Perhaps Jim Hickey does. It appears Chris Archer does not, or at least has not been able to correct it consistently enough thus far. I will say, though, that if I trust anyone to fight through this and overcome it, it's Chris. Good pitcher, better human, and someone I'm happy to root for. I hope you will too.
A couple of surprising bats brought the thunder today as the Rays played catchup. Logan "Thin Ice" Morrison launched a no-doubt home run to right field to tie the game 2-2 in the 2nd. The ball was so obviously gone off the bat that J.D. Martinez barely budged as he watched is sail over the fence. I don't know if LoMo is hitting his stride or if pitchers are throwing him strikes now with little fear of challenging his bat, but he's had a decent little week.
Timmy Beckham got on the board in the 7th as well. Down 6-2 to the Tigers with Deezy on first, TBex hit a shot into the bushes beyond the center field fence to temporarily trim the Tigers' lead to two.
The Tigers would extend the lead soon after, however, as Dana Eveland walked in a run with the bases loaded in the 7th, and VMart homered off of home run king Steve Geltz in the 8th.
Notes:
- Jordan Zimmerman and Miguel Cabrera both left the game with injuries today. I never enjoy seeing good players go down with injury, especially after what the Rays just went through this weekend with Kevin Kiermaier.
- Today's loss brings the Rays record to 20-21, where they sit 5.5 games back from the top of the AL East and 3.5 back from the second wild card.
The final was 9-4 Tigers in a game that was not very fun to watch. The boys head down to Miami tomorrow, as Matt Moore takes the mound against Wei-Yin Chen.