ST. PETERSBURG — One of this pandemic-shortened season’s opening weekend series featured a team that desires to vacate its present home for half a season against a team that for more than a week could not find a home.
Welcome to the 2020 baseball season when empty parking lots, empty stands, safety protocols, piped in crowd noise, a Toronto team that will play home games at its Triple-A affiliate in Buffalo, and a new extra-inning rule give the national pastime a look and feel light years removed from what we are accustomed to experiencing.
One thing seems to be the same, though: Kevin Cash’s Tampa Bay Rays are a resilient bunch.
Sure, it is early in a season in which the finish line emerges quickly. However, when the Rays walked off the field Sunday afternoon, they did so celebrating a come-from-behind, ten-inning win over the Blue Jays.
It was not just any extra-inning win. Rather, it was an improbable victory in that Tampa Bay trailed by two with two outs and nobody on in the ninth inning while facing Blue Jays’ closer Ken Giles.
More than 30 minutes later and after falling behind by a run in the top of the 10th, Kevin Kiermaier, wearing a size-11 collar in 2020, ripped a triple that drove home Kevan Smith and Jose Martinez with the tying and winning runs.
It may have been Kiermaier’s first walk-off hit since 2015, but for this club the late-inning uprising had such a familiar ring to it.
“It’s a new year, but the same mindset,” said the veteran center fielder and three-time American League Gold Glove winner. “We had so many great come-from-behind wins last year and the best teams in baseball do that year in and year out. Good things happen when you have 25 to 30 guys on the same page with a never-quit mentality and it is a contagious feel throughout the clubhouse. We would rather win outright rather than having to pull off the comeback wins, but at the same time they are fun to be a part of and it’s great for the team camaraderie.”
The Rays overcame a 4-0, sixth-inning deficit to win their ninth straight extra-inning game dating to last season. It was their 11th walk-off win in the last two seasons, tied with Oakland for most in the American League.
Cash, in his sixth season leading the Rays, would prefer to not have to battle from behind. Alas, a deep bench and the “never-quit” attitude Kiermaier referenced give this team a fighting chance even when things might look bleak in the late innings.
Twenty-four hours earlier, in Saturday’s 4-1 win, things were not necessarily bleak. However, the Rays had only three hits before a three-run eighth inning snapped a 1-1 tie. It was another example of perhaps not looking pretty in getting the win, but it is hard to argue with the results.
“Our bats are going to get going and we have a deep lineup and a versatile lineup,” said Cash, whose team lost opening day, 6-4, after trailing by five. “For whatever reason, credit the Blue Jays pitchers, they kept us quiet. It is almost like we started scoring once we’ve been scored on. Ideally, that is not the recipe for success, but it worked out for us (in taking two out three games from Toronto.”)
Something else worked out for the Rays. While Kiermaier had his first walk-off hit since 2015, Ji-Man Choi strolled to the plate as a right-handed hitter for the first time in five years.
Choi, who was 6-for-14 from the right side while in the Mariners’ system at the end of the 2015 season, thought that after nearly 600 major and minor league games it might be time to try it again.
After striking out in his first at-bat from that side of the plate against lefty reliever Anthony Kay in the third inning, Choi launched a 429-foot missile into the centerfield stands off Kay in the sixth for the Rays’ first run.
“During summer camp Cash came up to me and asked me about being a switch-hitter,” he said, through an interpreter. “We really didn’t put any thought into it. Today I felt pretty good, so I figured why not.”
With Choi hitting from both sides the Rays added a weapon and more versatility to the roster without adding a player. That seems so typical of an organization that from top to bottom gets the most mileage out of its inventory of players.
As for Sunday’s win in the tenth, again, it was only one game but the new extra-inning rule in which there is a runner on second base at the start of each inning worked out just fine for the Rays.
“I like it because we have all been a part of some very long games that are hard on the bodies, are just mentally and physically draining and you usually pay the price the day after and the day after that,” said Kiermaier. “It’s about trying to speed things up and get some action going and limit us from being out there in five or six hours in some cases. I’m all for it.”
I have been a sports writer and editor since 1990 with companies such as Beckett Publishing, The Topps Company and Comcast’s Versus network. I have also been a freelance
I have been a sports writer and editor since 1990 with companies such as Beckett Publishing, The Topps Company and Comcast’s Versus network. I have also been a freelance reporter covering college football, the NHL and MLB. In addition to being a contributing writer for forbes.com, I cover University of South Florida football and basketball, the Tampa Bay Rays and Tampa Bay Lightning for sportstalkflorida.com. I am also a contributing writer for Tampa Bay Business & Wealth magazine. I am a member of the Football Writers Association of America and the National Football Foundation.