National Sports Pulse: Rays Tie ALCS Series 1-1

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Rays Tie ALCS Series 1-1

Tampa Bay Rays v/s Boston Red Sox

ALCS Game 1 Recap:

Boston's Jason Bay (former L.A. Dodger) slammed a HR in the 5th.

Tampa Bay's Pitcher, James Shields had a shaky start but survived Red Sox run in 7th, stranding 2 on base.

Rays started a rally in the bottom of the 7th as Carl Crawford singles for the Rays first hit of the game. Next up, Floyd hits a single moving Crawford to third with no outs. Unfortunately the Rays failed to score with Carl Crawford on third base and nobody out in the seventh inning, stranding runners on the corners.

Boston answers back in the top of the 8th as Kevin Youkilis hits a stand up double and scores Pedoria while advancing Ortiz to third with 1 out. J.D. Drew was hit by the next pitch to load the bases for Boston. Fortunately the Rays survive inning catching a pop up stranding Boston with bases loaded.

FUN FACT: Tampa Bay has out scored Boston 19-4 from the seventh inning on at Tropicana Field this season. Tampa Bay has 45 come from behind wins. ALCS best of 7 series Game 1 Winner has won 55% of the series.

Tampa Bay hopes this isn't true as the attempt to come back in game 2. Experience wins out as Boston leads series 1-0

ALCS Game 2 Recap:

From the very beginning this game was going to be a L-O-N-G shoot out. Both Boston and Tampa Bay quickly put up 2 runs a piece in the first inning.

The Rays Floyd, Longoria and Upton homered off Boston's struggling Josh Beckett in the 5th inning. Bostons answered back with three home runs of their own. "It's very frustrating any time you get eight runs for you and you can't win the game," Beckett said.

The game then slowed down a bit as each team only scored 1 additional run in the game making it 8-8 after 9 innings. Extra innings were needed to decide this thrilling Game 2.

After only 5 hours, 27 minutes, the Rays wound up winning Game 2 when Perez tagged up on BJ Upton's one-out fly and beat right fielder J.D. Drew's throw home.

"Like I said, in a straight-up race, I've got him over Seabiscuit," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "I'm dating myself a bit. I'm sorry, but that's the first horse that came to my mind."

"We did not want to go to Boston down 0-2," said Evan Longoria, who homered for Tampa Bay. "It's 1:30 in the morning and we pulled it out."