Rays 7 Twins 2: Did Zack get pulled a Littell too soon?

Big win for Littell man.

Tonight felt like a Rays game of yore, with yore being seasons in which Tampa Bay was winning a lot of games.

This game had it all — great pitching, stellar defense, some timely hitting, and a chance to argue about Kevin Cash’s bullpen management.

A real pitcher’s duel prevailed for more than half the game. Zach Littell for the Rays and Chris Paddack for the Twins traded zeros for five and half innings, with Littell having a bit of an advantage — he’d given up three hits, but two of those runners were erased on double plays. He therefore had gotten through six innings with under 70 pitches.

The Rays broke the game open in the bottom of the sixth inning. Brandon Lowe and Junior Caminero both got hits, and Aranda came up with two men in scoring position. He homered to right field to put the Rays up 3-0.

As the inning continued, Kameron Misner singled, and went to second when reliever Brock Stewart threw errantly in a pick off attempt. There was a lengthy pause at that point, as the Twins claimed that Misner had stepped beyond first base and never touched the bag a second time as he rushed to make it to second base on the wild throw. It took several minutes and a Zapruder film-like analysis for the reviewers to determine that he hadn’t actually crossed over first base and therefore did not need to re-touch the bag.

Littell came out to start the seventh inning and seemed to be cruising, getting the first out on a ground ball. The second batter of the inning was Ty France, and France seemed (to my eye) to jut his elbow into the path of a splitter — he may not have done this intentionally, but I thought you could argue that he did not make any effort to get out of the way, and so he took first base.

At that point, Cash came to take Littell out, which I found mystifying.

Isn’t the great thing about a guy starting the seventh inning with under 70 pitches that he can keep pitching?

Maybe Cash feels he needs to be even MORE protective of his starters when they are pitching in the heat. Maybe Littell was showing signs of fatigue that were apparent to Cash and Snyder even if not apparent to a fan watching on TV.

But at any rate, Littell was lifted with a man on base, and so of course — of course — Garrett Cleavinger gives up a home run to the next batter make it a 3-2 game.

But the Rays hitters were not done for the night. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Aranda and Mead each singled, and Caballero hit a ball to deep left field. Twins left fielder Trevor Larnach tracked the ball, followed it back to the track, back to the wall, perfectly timed his leap to catch the ball…but just managed to deflect it off his glove, with Caballero heading to second as both Aranda and Mead scored to re-establish a three run lead.

But it got even better, because then Danny Jansen homered to almost exactly the same area where Caballero hit his double, but a few feet deeper. That gave the Rays a 7-2 lead.

Then, Christopher Morel also hit a ball back to the left field wall, and Larnach once again tracked it back, and once again only managed to deflect, rather than catch the ball. Another double, although Morel was stranded at second.

A tough night for Trevor Larnach. And he might need to get a little nervous about keeping that left field position, because as he clumsily misplayed two doubles, the fan in the stands just behind him managed to catch Jansen’s home run perfectly….with her hat.

It’s nice being over .500, the air is so much clearer up here.