How Bout That For Your Second Career Start?

By now everybody has heard about the monumental collapse of the Red Sox and the amazing play of the Rays that landed them the AL Wild Card spot. On September 3rd the Red Sox lead the Rays by 9 games but the Rays roared all the way back to pull within even of the Sox on the last day of the season. After trailing 7-0 after seven innings and failing to produce offensively with minor league pitchers like Dellin Betances and George Kontos pitching for the Yankees, the Rays sparked a furious comeback to win in extra innings shortly after the Red Sox had fallen to the Orioles in Baltimore 4-3. The Rays were obviously fatigued by the long month of baseball and the crazy ups and downs of the last night of the season. The Rays arrived at Rangers Ballpark at 4:30 the next day, about 24 hours before their playoff game there the next day. Rays manager Joe Maddon said, "It really draws a lot out of you. It's difficult to bring everything together from the conclusion of the last night to this curren moment. We celebrated. As we should have. We had some benign conversations on how to shape the roster. We're not even there yet." With all of the emotions and the lack of rest for the Rays, many people doubted their chances in game 1 on the road against the AL West champion Texas Rangers, whose potent lineup scored the 3rd most runs in the MLB during the regular season. Further questions were raised when Joe Maddon tabbed Matt Moore as his game 1 starter. However, Moore showed why he is touted as one of the top pitching prospects and one of the top 10 overall prospects according to Baseball Prospectus. More importantly, Moore has put the Rays in a great early position to advance to the ALCS.

To many people, the move to start a rookie, who has only started one game in his career, was not the best option for Joe Maddon. Maddon could have gone many other ways instead of throwing such an inexperienced pitcher onto the mound in such a pressure situation. Maddon could have called on his best pitcher all year, James Shields, to pitch on three days rest. Shields had been great the entire regular season for the Rays posting the third best ERA in the AL at 2.82. If Maddon felt that he wanted to save Shields until game 2 when he would be fully rested and at full strength, he could have also gone with established starter Wade Davis, who had pitched 8 innings and allowed just 2 runs in his last start. Another element that made many people disagree with the decision was that the left handed Moore would be throwing to a Texas lneup that is entirely made up of right handed batters aside from Josh Hamilton. 

Although there were obvious risks in starting a guy with such limited experience, Moore showed in his only start of the season against the Yankees on September 22nd that his stuff is good enough to frustrate any team on a given day from the Yankees to a great hitting team like the Rangers. Moore's combination of a mid 90's fastball and a devastating changeup makes him a difficult pitcher to hit against. In that game against the Yankees, Moore pitched 5 solid innings and let up no runs, while adding 11 strikeouts. After that game Joe Maddon said, "His composure, Yankee Stadium, throwing strikes, all those things speak to the makeup of Matt Moore." That statement by Maddon describes the reasoning behind why he chose Moore to start game 1 of a huge playoff series.

Moore definitely did not let his manager down by pitching an unbelievable game to give the Rays a 1-0 lead over the Rangers and a huge road victory. Moore pitched 7 innings of 2 hit baseball, while allowing no runs with 6 strikeouts. Moore got a big lift from his Rays offense as well, which clearly lifted a lot of pressure off of the 22 year old. By the time Moore came out to pitch in the bottom of the 3rd, the Rays already lead the Rangers 6-0. The early 6 run lead took the crowd out of the game as well and eased the nerves that Moore was feeling at the beginning of the game. Moore said, “I may have looked a little more clam than I was, especially early. The first inning, I had a little bit of nerves and adrenaline going. But these guys made it really easy for me, putting up those numbers. Looking up there are the fourth, I think it was 8-0, it was just a matter of throwing strikes and getting out of the innings as fast as possible.” Moore was also able to keep his pitch count down including having 2 half innings where he made less than 10 pitches, so he was able to last 7 innings and give a tired Rays bullpen a much needed extra day of rest. The Rays closer, Kyle Farnsworth, who had pitched in every Rays game except one since September 24th, got an extra day of rest with the Rays up 9-0 coming into the bottom of the 9th. Now that’s what you call an impressive second major league start.