looked masterful Saturday afternoon as the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-3 at Tropicana Field. The hard-throwing lefty struck out 11 batters to match a career high. Price gave up just a single walk and was responsible for two earned runs.
“When he’s on, you know he’s on,” said Rays 2B Sean Rodriguez, who got a hit, a walk, and two RBI in three at-bats.
In addition to great pitching, the Rays took advantage of free bases, in the form of 11 walks and two hit batters. While unable to convert them in recent outings, all of Tampa Bay's runs scored Saturday originated either as walks or batters hit by pitches. Ben Zobrist came around to score in the second inning after having walked, brought in by Jason Bartlett’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly. Matt Joyce, Bartlett, and B.J. Upton all walked in the sixth; Joyce and Bartlett were brought in by a Rodriguez single and Upton tallied another on Carlos Pena’s ground ball. Zobrist was hit by a pitch in the seventh and stole second base for the second time in the game; he advanced to third base on a wild pitch. Bartlett then bunted his way aboard, scoring Big Ben on the Rays’ patented safety squeeze.
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2010.