When Brad Peet hit a home run in the bottom of the first to give us a 1-0 lead it seemed like it would be a good night at the plate for the Knights, but that would be our last hit of the game. Luckily Steven Johnson would pitch 6 2/3 shutout innings and we'd get great relief from Mark Carver and Victor Flores to hold on for the 1-0 win.
The first inning has been good for the Knights this series, with Ricardo Martinez hitting a sacrifice fly and Nicholas Hammond doubling home two runs, and Jose Ruiz rebounded from his atrocious start to hold the Rays to 2 runs in 6 innings to pick up the win. We once again got solid relief from Mark Carver and Victor Flores who closed out the 5-2 win. I bet Carver wishes he could take away those ill-advised four starts where he was 0-4 with a 9.32 ERA, because as a reliever he's now 6-2 with 9 saves and a 2.13 ERA in 72 innings.
You can't win them all, and I admit that our biggest weakness right now is Roy Grant, who gave up 6 runs in 3 innings to take the loss as the Rays beat us 8-6. If we can make it to the playoffs he won't be a factor as our #5 starter, but we'll have to survive him starting every fifth day to get there.
The Knights are now 1/2 game behind the Rays, and hold a 5 1/2 game lead in the Wild Card. Our attendance is up 77.7% this year, although our owner is still upset.
