Friday August 19th – Kansas City Royals @ Tampa Bay Rays
In the second game of a four game series with Kansas City, the Tampa Bay Rays had several opportunities to win this game, but because of mental, and physical mistakes could not prevail.
I am not going into detail, but rather a quick overview, that in my opinion, helped to suffer the loss.
In the bottom of the third with bases loaded and two outs, Randy Arozarena, the team’s leader in home runs, and RBI, was due up. But was halted by Harold Ramírez getting picked off at second base. The potential rally ended.
In the home half of the sixth inning, the Rays tied the game at 2-2. With Arozarena on second base, manager Kevin Cash allowed Roman Quinn, who has a 45.6% BIP (which I will explain later) Yandy Díaz, who was available to pinch-hit and has a 70.6% BIP remained on the bench. Quinn subsequently struck out for the third time to end the inning.
(Note: “BIP” is a little known calculation that indicates the percentage of the time a hitter puts the Ball In Play.)
In the bottom half of the ninth inning, Taylor Walls singled to left and because of a bobble of the ball, he tried to stretch it into a double, but was thrown out. Quinn, having a terrible game, struck out for the fourth time of the night.
In a “textbook” top of the 10th, with a “ghost runner” on second, a sacrifice bunt followed by a sacrifice fly gave the Royals the lead, 3-2.
It only got worse in the bottom of the tenth. With Quinn on second to open the inning, Díaz grounded out to the shortstop, preventing an advance to third. Francisco Mejía took the first pitch for a ball and on the second delivery, Quinn attempted to steal third and was thrown out. Mejía hit a line drive to left field and MJ Melendez made a diving catch to end the game.
Final Score: Kansas City 3 Tampa Bay 2
A BlunderFULL game
