Tampa Bay Game 1 ALDS
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- Category: Sports
Rays Continue To Roll
Tampa Pounds Texas In 9-0 Win
When the dog days of August came to an end, Tampa Bay was essentially eliminated from the American League wild card race. Sitting 9 games back of the Boston Red Sox, who many analysts predicted would make it to the World Series, the Rays had 28 games in September to pull off the impossible.
After taking 6 of 7 from the Red Sox in September, the Rays were back in contention, but far from having a realistic chance of catching a Boston team who had a relatively soft September schedule. As the Rays kept winning the Red Sox kept losing, resulting in the two teams falling into a tie going into the 162 game and last day of the season.
In game 162 the Rays trailed the AL East champion New York Yankees 7-0 late in the game, but pulled off a miraculous come-from-behind win that was capped off by a clutch game-winning homer in the bottom of the 12th inning by Evan "don't call me Eva" Longoria. With nobody to perform the Heimlich maneuver on the Red Sox, Boston choked, finishing off one of the biggest late-season melt downs in sports history.
Tampa Rides Momentum
Tampa Bay had no intention of taking it easy once they made it to the playoffs, and that was abundantly clear when the Rays humiliated the AL West champion Texas Rangers.
When the ALDS game one starting pitching was announced, many sports writers were shocked to see who the Rays planned on sending out against Texas ace lefty C.J. Wilson. With less than 10 innings pitched in the big leagues, the Rays sent out basically a minor league prospect in Matt Moore.
The Rays gambled on Moore and they hit the jackpot.
Moore not only came into the game with absolutely electric stuff, but he also shutdown one of the most prolific offensive ball clubs in the major leagues by tossing 7 shut out innings. "Clearly, the Rays had a freight train of momentum coming into game one of the ALDS, but nobody could have predicted a no-name pitcher with two weeks of big league experience would toss 7 innings of two-hit ball against the Texas Rangers", explained a fleet tracker specialist for the GPS Tracker Shop.
Tampa Bay now leads the ALDS 1-0 with their best pitcher slated to toe the rubber Saturday.
Opinion:
Will the Rays continue to ride this improbable wave of momentum into a game 2 win, or will the Texas Rangers bounce back to even the series?
GPS Tracking Expert Prediction:
Shields will pitch well, but the Rays bullpen will fold the lead as the Rangers come back late in a 5-3 win to even the series 1-1 heading back to the trop.