Tampa Bay Rays Season Summed Up by 16 Innings of Frustration

The Boston Red Sox defeated the Tampa Bay Rays Sunday night 1-0 after 16 innings. The game itself was an amazing five-hour, 44-minute battle between the American League East teams.

Aside from the abnormal length, the game also featured everything from a broken light on the catwalk, two ejections and a fan running out on the field.

As remarkable as the game was, it also served as a snapshot of the Rays' 2011 season that has been filled with more lows than highs as they fight to remain in the postseason hunt.

Joe Maddon Ejected

Joe Maddon was ejected by home plate umpire Chad Fairchild in the 11th inning. It marked Maddon's fifth ejection of the season. It also extended his franchise record to 21 ejections with the Rays.

If he maintains his current pace he will be ejected from four more games before this season ends. All of Maddon's ejections are very entertaining to watch.

Bullpen Struggles

In eight innings of work, Jeff Niemann walked only two Red Sox hitters. In the second eight innings of work, eight Rays relievers walked 10 Red Sox hitters.

Need I say more?

Great Defense

The Rays held the Red Sox to one run after they had scored 38 in their previous five games. Defense has been and will continue to be how their bread gets buttered.

B.J. Upton and Ben Zobrist both had incredible grabs Sunday night to keep the game going into the early hours of the morning.

The Rays have 99 problems but defense ain't one.

Losing at Home

The Rays can count out any hopes of playing in the playoffs if they do not start winning more games at home. Coming into this season they were tied with the Red Sox for the best home record from 2008-2010 with a 158-85 record (.656).

The worst home record of any team to qualify for the playoffs in the last 20 years is 43-38 (.531).

So far this season, they have a 22-23 record at home (.489) and are currently seven games behind Boston in the division. They have the largest road-home disparity in the AL.

Poor Attendance

If you look up "beating a dead horse" in the dictionary, there would probably be a reference of discussion about Tampa Bay Rays attendance. The topic has been discussed and debated more than almost any other issue involving the team.

After an epic game against Boston where 21,504 were in attendance for an ESPN nationally televised game, the topic is sure to resurface. Tropicana Field was less than 60 percent capacity for the 16-inning nail biter and for the first portion of the game it sounded more like the game was in Boston than Tampa Bay with chants of, "Let's go Red Sox."

Stadium Debate

Speaking of beating a dead horse, let's re-open the "Tropicana Field isn't suitable for professional baseball" debate. Sean Rodriguez hit a foul ball in the eighth inning that shattered a light and sent hot shards of broken glass falling to the playing surface just in front of fans.

There was a temporary delay to the game as the grounds crew attempted to clean up the debris from the field. However, the crew continued to return to the area for the remainder of the game to continue cleaning the playing surface.

What does this random occurrence have to do with the stadium debate?

Unfortunately for the Rays, the glass broke on national television against the Red Sox the night before another nationally televised game against the Yankees on ESPN. Expect for the announcers to drown out any blank spaces with talk about Tropicana Field and all of its perceived deficiencies both right and wrong.

Plate Discipline

The Rays have to get better performances out of the hitters. In 16 innings of work, they only compiled three hits and one walk. That is completely unacceptable for a team trying to defend a division title.

They allowed Red Sox reliever Alfredo Aceves to complete three innings only throwing 27 pitches. Boston didn't have to go as deep into their bullpen as Tampa Bay since they were able to keep pitch counts lower.

Their on-base percentage currently ranks them 11th out of the 14 American League teams. Again, in order for them to remain competitive, they need to start getting more men on base.

Good Starting Pitching

Lost in the length of Sunday night's game was how impressive Jeff Niemann was on the mound for the Rays. He only allowed two hits and two walks in his eight innings of shutout work. He also recorded 10 strikeouts against the Red Sox.

Tampa Bay has been getting a lot of great performances out of its starting pitching. The starters have accounted for 600 of the 833 innings pitched this season and 38 of the 50 wins.

Umpire Lack of Calls

It seems the Rays have been on the short end of the stick with judgment calls by umpires this season. There have been multiple plays that were called incorrectly as well as other moments that umpires just missed.

This happened again as Marco Scutaro hit a pop-up fly ball behind home plate Sunday night. As Casey Kotchman was positioning himself to catch the ball, Scutaro throws his bat to the ground which bounces towards Kotchman but received no attention from the umpires.

Later in the game, Scutaro saw a pitch from Brandon Gomes come very close to the head. I'm sure the timing of the close pitch was purely coincidental and just a case of a ball that got away.

Lack of Offense

One run.

That's all the Rays needed to defeat Boston Sunday night—just one run.

In order to get that one run, the Rays would've needed to get more than six baserunners in 16 innings. The Red Sox left 17 on base in the marathon game and Tampa Bay couldn't capitalize on the opportunities its defense presented.

The Rays .244 team batting average ranks 24th in all of baseball.

Now more than ever, the loss of Carl Crawford is showing its impact.