[THE HANGOVER] The One Where We Discuss Being On The Right Side Of History For Once
Josh Sale, Matt Garza, Matt Joyce July 27th. 2010, 7:43am
The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
click above image for boxscore
THE GOOD: Matt Garza. The Garza Complex threw the first no-hitter in franchise history. It took him 120 pitches (101 fastballs) and he faced the minimum 27 batters…Matt Joyce. Against his former team, Joyce broke up Max Scherzer’s no-hit bid with a grand slam with 2 outs in the 6th…The Catch. Every no-hitter has at least one great defensive play and Ben Zobrist delivered for Matt Garza with a great running and leaping grab in the 3rd inning. Of course only Zobrist makes that play look hard. BJ Upton would have gotten to that spot, eaten a sandwich and still would have been waiting for the ball to come down.
THE BAD: Broken Bats. For the 5th time this season (or is it 6?) the Rays failed to get a hit in the first 5 innings of a game. A while back we joked that the over/under for that stat would be 8.5. Now we wouldn’t be surprised if the Rays hit the over…Easy on the Umps. Sure, the play had no influence on the outcome, but at the time, there was plenty of criticism for the missed call on BJ Upton’s stolen base that led to Jim Leyland’s ejection. That is an easy call in slow-motion and the entire play in one frame. But one of the most difficult calls for an umpire to make is a tag play in which the tag is away from the bag. The ump can’t see both the tag and the bag, and there is no sound to listen for like there is at first base.
THE TELLING: The pitch Matt Joyce hit for a grand slam was Max Scherzer’s 104th of the game so it was unlikely he would have lasted much longer and it is hard to believe the Tigers would have let him go 9…The 120 pitches for Matt Garza matched his career-high. It was the 5th time he has thrown 120 pitches…Of the Rays 98 games this season, 3 have been no-hitters…The Rays are the first team since 1991 to throw a no-hitter and be no-hit in the same season (White Sox)…This was the second no-hitter at the Trop in the last 11 games. And the Rays are just the 3rd team to be involved in 3 no-hitters in one season.
WHERE THEY STAND: The Rays are 60-38, 3 games behind the Yankees and 5 games in front of the Red Sox in the Wild Card. After 98 games in 2008, the Rays were 58-40.
THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- Matt Garza talks about his no-hitter (Video). [The Heater]
- John Romano writes about Matt Garza’s magical night. [St. Pete Times]
- Joe Henderson writes about the night the stars aligned for Matt Garza. [Tampa Tribune]
- Matt Moore was named the FSL pitcher of the week. [Rays Prospects]
- A pest control worker was arrested for stealing a Rays AL Championship ring. [St. Pete Times]
- Matt Sweeney who came over in the Scott Kazmir deal last year, is nursing a sore elbow. [Montgomery Advertiser]
- Draft America interviewed Josh Sale’s (Rays first-round pick this year) high school coach. [Draft America]
- Rays still second in the latest Power Rankings at ESPN. [ESPN]
- Edwin Jackson could be on the move again. [MLB Trade Rumors]
DOWN ON THE FARM…
- Check out Rays Prospects for boxscores and more detailed recaps. [Rays Prospects]
- DURHAM: Virgil Vasquez improved to 5-1 since returning from two broken wrists. He gave up just 1 run in 7 innings on 4 hits and 2 walks…Dan Johnson hit a 3-run home run, his league-leading 29th…Fernando Perez (2004-7) and Joe Dillon also homered…Omar Luna was 4-5 with 2 doubles.
- MONTGOMERY: Heath Rollins made just his 2nd start since being demoted and gave up 3 runs in 3.2 innings…Leslie Anderson hit his 6th home run, a 3-run shot…Henry Wrigley (2005-14) was 1-4 with a double and 2 RBI.
- CHARLOTTE: (no game scheduled)
- BOWLING GREEN: Kirby Yates gave up 5 runs (2 earned) in 5 innings including 2 home runs…Cody Rogers (2009-7) was 0-4 and is now hitting just .288.
- HUDSON VALLEY: Nate Garcia (2010-16) allowed just 1 run in 3 innings, striking out 4 and walking 1…Robby Price (2010-13) was 2-5 with a triple to extend his hitting streak to 13. He is hitting .319.
- PRINCETON: Braulio Lara gave up 4 runs in 4 innings, but only 1 was earned. His ERA is 2.83…Kevin Keirmaier (2010-31) had his 3rd straight multi-hit game, going 2-4 and raising his average to .263.
Related posts:
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/baseball/rays/television-ratings-for-tampa-bay-rays-on-the-rise/1111241
Cork, can you email that to peter gammons, ha, jk kinda….
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I have to admit, I was so bummed that the Rays were being no-hit AGAIN that I didn’t even realize Garza hadn’t given up any hits until after the Rays scored!
Also, as much as I hate to rain on today’s wonderful parade, I agree that Zobrist’s defensive “gem” was as much about his limitations as his talents. The postgame analysis all made it seem as though his catch robbed a base hit, but clearly a more skilled outfielder would have tracked that ball better from the time is was hit and been better positioned to catch it. No disrespect for Ben, who is awesome for a guy who spent his baseball life training for one position and now is called upon to play many others.
One final observation — it was fun watching shots of the dugout during the last inning. Neimann looked so nervous I thought he’d throw up. Nice to see how the pitchers have eachothers’ backs.
In a perverse way this makes me hate Garza even more. Just kidding, but you know what I mean?
The 101 fastballs stat seems way off to me. Off-hand in the last 3 inninngs he must have thrown 20 breaking pitches — sliders and quite a few curves.
Was Shoppach the catcher when Price had his “almost all fastball” start a few weeks back? Maybe he’s on to something. Working up in the zone especially.
I did see a couple of people list the number this morning as 99. I counted it twice using Pitchf/x, but that can miss-identify a few pitches from time-to-time. However, in the case of Garza, his fastballs seem to get miss-ID’d as breaking balls because they have so much movement. Either way, it was about 100 fastballs.
Wild second part to the Jim Leyland ejection, the big commotion and blow-up by Leyland was because Leyland went all “Roberto Alomar” on Second Base Umpire Marty Foster. Leyland supposibly had a large amount of sunflower seeds in his mouth, and a few spewed upon Foster, which hastened his ejection. Worst part is that even if it was not liquid spittal, Foster will probably report Leyland to the MLB protectors and a fine and suspension is definitely on the horizon.
Funny, Leyland is a active leader in the MLB’s 14-member “On-Field Matter Committee”. Should be fun to see how this one ends up.
Since I was too nervous to watch the whole game, did the announcers ever mention the no hitter or just hint at it? And when did they start “talking” about it?
Matt Garza pitched a no-no………YES!!!! He needs to to be lights out for the Rays and I hope this is a start. This no-no made up for the Edwin Jackson and Dallas Braden no-hitted against this team.