With Adam on vacation this week, I’ve had the opportunity to write this week’s Player of the Series articles, and the power is thrilling. I can choose anyone!
Maybe I could even choose the fans! Because, in addition to the great bucket hat catch on Memorial Day, we were treated to this bro who celebrated catching a homerun ball with Raymond, and I’m mostly here for the vibes anyway.
But the intent of this series is to celebrate the players, and that I shall. For this series, I wish I could give the award to all three starting pitchers, who showed up with their best stuff and put the Rays in position to succeed against the red hot Twins, taking 2 of 3 and a series win.
If you watched yesterday’s matinee, you saw Drew Rasmussen pumping 99.7 mph and blanking the Twins in a heat index to match that fastball. For that reason, though, the Twins looked fairly defeated, and took their loss and got on their plane to go home.
Not to be ignored was also Taj Bradley. Now, wait a second, I know what you’re thinking here. The Rays lost that game! Facing off against Joe Ryan, the Rays would fall 4-2. But only two of those runs were the fault of Bradley.
But the biggest performance of the series, for me, was Zack Littell. In this matchup the Twins came to play, and Littell only struck out four, but the fastball was playing up above the zone so well, and the splitter had full range and movement. In short, he shut out the Twins in a tone setter that cannot be understated.
In the game Littell also fielded a double play on a comebacker with two men on just calm as you like.
DRAYSBAY PLAYER OF THE SERIES
1st: Kameron Misner
2nd: Jake Mangum
3rd: Brandon Lowe
4th: Jose Caballero
5th: Joe Boyle
6th: Shane Baz
7th: Chandler Simpson
8th: Christopher Morel
9th: Chandler Simpson
10th: Mason Englert
11th: Taylor Walls
12th: Yandy Diaz
13th: Travis Jankowski
14th: Brandon Lowe
15th: Drew Rasmussen
16th: Curtis Mead
17th: Junior Caminero
18th: Zack Littell