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Houston’s DeAndre Hopkins |
The Tampa Bay Rays finished the second-best homestand in their history Womens Samuel Girard Jersey , with a much easier path between now and the All-Star Game as they try to claw their way back into wild-card contention.
Tampa Bay (41-40) went 8-1 at Tropicana Field, finishing a grueling stretch of 16 games against the New York Yankees, Houston Astros and Washington Nationals and going 10-6 in those games to rise back above .500.
Now the Rays have a stretch of 16 straight games against teams with losing records, including a three-game series at the Miami Marlins (34-51) starting Monday.
The Rays have dominated with their patchwork pitching staff, allowing a total of seven runs in their last six games, with five wins and a 1-0 loss. They took three of four from Houston to close out the homestand and hope to continue the success to take some positive momentum into the All-Star break.
“The fact that we have been winning and everyone has been coming together at clutch moments has been great,” said outfielder Mallex Smith, who had a late solo home run in Sunday’s 3-2 win over Houston. “We’ve been jelling as a team. We’ve been feeding off one another. It seems like someone new coming through at the right time every day.”
Next for Tampa Bay is Nathan Eovaldi (2-3, 4.08 ERA), who played for the Marlins from 2012 to 2014 and will almost certainly fare better than his only career appearance against his former team. In June 2015, he played there with the Yankees and gave up nine hits and eight earned runs in less than an inning, leaving after two outs with a 108.00 ERA to show for it.
Eovaldi has shown promise since returning from Tommy John surgery — his last start against Washington lasted six innings and he gave up no runs, one and and two walks with nine strikeouts.
The Marlins will answer with Wei-Yin Chen, who knows the Rays from his days with the Baltimore Orioles. He has started 21 career games against Tampa Bay, more than any other opponent, and posted a 5-6 record with a 3.72 ERA.
That’s considerably better than his overall numbers this year — he’s 2-5 with a 6.14 ERA, though his last start was solid. He limited Arizona to one run and five hits in six innings last week. Against Tampa Bay last year, he pitched well Semyon Varlamov Jersey , holding the Rays to two runs and two hits in six innings.
The in-state rivals will meet again right after the All-Star break for three more games, but the extended run against lesser opponents is something the Rays must dominate if they want to get back into wild-card contention.
Even after winning eight of nine games, Tampa Bay is still 11 games behind Seattle for the second AL wild card. Still, being 42-41 after opening the season 1-8 isn’t bad, especially considering the injuries they’ve dealt with and the talent traded away since the end of last season.
Jacksonville’s vaunted defense suddenly seems vulnerable to big plays.
The Jaguars (10-6) have allowed nine scoring plays of 25 or more yards – and several more that led to points – in the last six games. It’s a negligible but noticeable nuance for a unit that is among the NFL leaders in nearly every defensive category.
”We’re really good in the red zone, so we try to give up the long ones,” defensive coordinator Todd Wash joked Thursday. ”We’re excelling at that.”
Wash actually sounded more concerned than his players, pointing the finger at himself for trying to get the defense in the ”perfect call” and giving his players too much to think about before and after the snap.
”There are some things we’ve got to get cleaned up,” Wash said. ”We’ve got to just let them play. I think the other team gets paid, too. I know we’re not the only team in the league that gets paid. You’ve got to give credit to them also, but we need to eliminate the long plays and just get them down.
”If there’s a blade of grass, we have to do a good job of defending it.”
Jacksonville’s recent defensive trend has been problematic. The Jags limp into Sunday’s wild-card game against Buffalo (9-7) having dropped consecutive games for the first time all season and three of their last six.
In all three losses, explosive plays against Jacksonville’s defense proved costly:
– Tennessee’s lone touchdown in a 15-10 victory last week came on a 66-yard screen pass from Marcus Mariota to Derrick Henry in the second quarter.
– San Francisco scored on a 30-yard run in a 44-33 victory the previous week.
– Arizona connected on TD passes of 29 and 52 yards in a 27-24 victory in late November.
”When we do it right, when we have everybody doing the right thing, nobody gets big plays,” defensive end Calais Campbell said. ”When we make mistakes, a big play happens here of there. We just know we have to be more disciplined and everybody has to be accountable for their assignment. If we do that, we’ll be successful.”
Even in Jacksonville’s last three victories Roberto Luongo Jersey , the defense has been lax at times:
– Houston’s DeAndre Hopkins had catches of 45 and 25 yards in a span of four plays against Pro Bowl cornerback Jalen Ramsey in mid-December, the second one going for a touchdown .
– Seattle’s Russell Wilson torched the Jaguars with TD passes to Doug Baldwin (26 yards), Paul Richardson (61) and Tyler Lockett (74) in the second half the previous week.
– And Indianapolis’ lone touchdown in two games against Jacksonville this season came on a fourth-and-2 play in the third quarter in early December when T.Y. Hilton got behind the defense for a 40-yard score.
”Luckily we not letting them bite us in the (butt) too hard,” defensive tackle Malik Jackson said. ”But from a defensive standpoint, if that’s the only thing that’s keeping us from being in that No. 1 spot, then it matters. Then again, if we’re not losing, then we can live with that. But it’s not a good thing.”
It’s definitely a concern for a team built to play stout defense and take some pressure off an inconsistent offense.
It might even be nitpicking considering the Jaguars rank second in the NFL in points allowed (16.8 a game), yards allowed (286.1 a game), sacks (55), takeaways (33) and interceptions (21).
Regardless, it’s a tendency the Jaguars hope to end to open the postseason.
”We want to somehow get to the perfect game,” Wash said. ”I don’t think it’s ever happened in the 24 years I’ve been coaching. But that’s what our expectations are, so when we do give up some chunk plays and we don’t play well, not only is the staff upset, the players are upset. We want to play the perfect game, and that’s the expectations that we have each time that we go out.”
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