Rays’ Longoria guesses right
AS THE longest-tenured Rays player, third baseman Evan Longoria has played in a World Series and pretty much seen it all on the baseball diamond as he starts his 10th season in the majors. That includes being on the wrong side of a perfect game.
When Yankees starter Michael Pineda was perfect through five innings Monday, Longoria said he started to sense that something incredible — and crushing for his team — might be unfolding in the Bronx.
“You can definitely start to feel it in Yankee Stadium. The fans kind of let you know. Once (Pineda) got through the fifth inning, the intensity when he was out on the mound definitely started to ramp up,” said Longoria. “It’s kind of battle when you’re in those situations to calm yourself down because it seems like there’s so much more riding on each pitch.”
Longoria, who was part of the Rays’ lineup on Aug. 15, 2012 at Safeco Field in Seattle when Mariners ace Felix Hernandez tossed a perfect game against Tampa Bay, said that at one point Monday he went down below the visitors’ dugout to check out video of Pineda, since the righthander was mowing down Rays at will with his slider.
“They put a stat up there, I think it was like 10 of 11 first-pitch strikes and a lot of them were with the slider. It just seemed like (Pineda) was really commanding it well, throwing it wherever he wanted to — back door to the lefties and down and away for strikes to the righthanders,” said Longoria. “When he needed to add a little more velocity or depth or take a little bit off, he really had a good feel for it today.”
Longoria struck out his first two times facing Pineda, and when he came to the plate for the third time in the seventh, Pineda was seven outs away from joining the ranks of Larsen, Wells and Cone. Longoria said in a situation like that, the pressure is weighing down on the batters like a cement wall.
“You’re a little bit more tense,” said Longoria, who added that batters could guess Pineda was going to throw either a first-pitch fastball or first-pitch slider on Monday.
“I just guessed slider on that pitch,” said Longoria, referring to the first pitch Pineda threw him in that seventh-inning at-bat.
Longoria whacked it to left for a two-out double, breaking up the perfect game, but he was left stranded on base when Pineda fanned Brad Miller to end the inning. In the at-bat prior to Longoria’s, Brett Gardner had made a nifty running catch of Kevin Kiermaier’s liner to save the perfect game bid. But Longoria left no doubt with his hit. An inning later, Logan Morrison slugged a solo homer off Pineda, the second of the two hits Pineda surrendered.
“When (Pineda) got to two strikes, he just did a really good job of putting guys away. We were definitely trying to swing early and didn’t have a whole lot of success,” Longoria said. “Everybody’s thinking the same thing, hoping he makes a mistake. Hats off to him. Thankfully it’s just one game.”