Tampa Bay Rays looking for resurgence

The last time Boston and Tampa Bay met it was magnificent moment for the Rays, as a 3-1 Game 7 victory set off pandemonium on the streets of west Florida. The old expression of “that was then and this is now” applies directly as the teams reconvene at Tropicana Field on Thursday for a four game series.

Since winning two of three in Boston to start the season, the defending American League champions have lost six straight series to fall to 8-14. Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon has been around baseball a long time and knows these things happen.

“We are not pleased with what's going on,” Maddon said. "We should have been able to win more than one series to this point. But it’s early. It truly is early and I’m very optimistic that we can turn this around.”

"Right now it's just not working. It's a part of the baseball season. Everybody goes through those bad moments. Ours happens to be at the beginning. It's a little bit more glaring. If it happens at the beginning of the year, it's a bad start. If it happens in the middle, you're in a slump. And if it happens at the end, you choke. So right now we're off to a bad start."

If last year brought new and different emotions into the Tampa Bay clubhouse, than certainly having to play with expectations brings another completely new set of circumstances to the Rays players.

Every game right now feels like it's really important for us," utility player Ben Zobrist said. "We need to stop thinking about wins and losses, and think more about playing good baseball. We have such a good team that if we keep focusing on doing the little things right, we're going to win ballgames. We're looking a little bit ahead of ourselves at the overall picture."

The Rays offense could use a few bats to get hot. In the team’s 14 losses, only once have they managed to score four runs, all others have fallen below that level. Based primarily on last season, Tampa Bay (-7.7 units) is 21-8 after scoring three runs or less two straight games over the last two seasons.

Boston (14-7, +4.6) on the other hand is brimming with confidence. They had their 11-game winning streak snapped Tuesday and trailed 5-0 yesterday, but as quality and confident teams do, they kept plugging away. The Red Sox scored five unanswered runs to tie Cleveland and pushed one across in the 10th inning to win the game 6-5 for their 12th win in 13 tries.

“That was a good win,” Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. “I think I’m probably understating it a little bit.” The Boston bullpen was again the story in shutting down the Tribe and they are 69-31 with a hot bullpen whose ERA is under 2.00 the last five games.

The opener has very good pitching matchup with Josh Beckett (2-1, 6.00 ERA, 1.625 WHIP) taking on Matt Garza (1-2, 4.97, 1.302). Beckett was rocked by the Yankees in his last start giving up 10 hits and eight runs over five innings. He and the Red Sox will bring 9-3 mark against teams with losing records. Garza is emotional person, which has prevented him from taking the next step to being elite pitcher. In his four starts this season, he’s either been on or been off. The 25-year old has great stuff, but like any pitcher, it’s not going to be there each time out and has to learn to control inner demons and win without best stuff. Garza likes to see the Red Sox uniforms, posting 4-1 record with a 3.40 ERA in seven career starts, which includes a win this season.

Bookmaker.com has the red-hot Red Sox as -115 money line favorites with total at Un9. Boston is only 9-13 at the Trop the last couple of years and 4-13 in all domed stadiums. They are 14-5 OVER in road games vs. a starting pitcher whose strikes out five or more batters per start. Though Tampa Bay is 64-32 at home, they are just 2-11 when the money line is +125 to -125 this season. The Rays are 12-2 UNDER as a home underdog of +100 or higher.

These two AL East rivals have a history, making anything possible. First pitch is scheduled for 7:08 Eastern on NESN and SUN, with Boston 11-2 on the road playing on Thursday’s.