Rays starter Erasmo Ramirez and Braves counterpart Williams Perez are not power pitchers. They are young right-handers who get outs with changing speeds, precise location and sharp movement.
Both pitchers were sharp in Tuesday at Tropicana Field. Soon it became clear there wouldn’t be many runs scored and the margin for error was small.
And then Perez flinched first.
Kevin Kiermaier’s two-out, two run homer against Perez in the seventh inning lifted the Rays to a 2-0 interleague victory on Tuesday at Tropicana Field.
“One pitch,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “It was a changeup out over (the plate), a little bit down. He went down and got it, and that was it. But (Perez) pitched real good. Can’t complain, really. We swung the bats well, hit some balls at people. We couldn’t capitalize.”
Kiermaier’s home run was only the fourth hit allowed by Perez. He got out of the inning and pitched a one-two-three eighth for his longest outing of the season.
Perez still took his third consecutive decision since returning from the disabled list. He allowed a total of 15 earned runs in his first two starts after missing more than a month with a foot injury.
It appeared Perez might make it through the seventh when Daniel Nava’s drive died at the warning track in right-center field for the second out. But his knee-high changeup to Kiermaier was down the middle of the plate and the outfielder smashed his fifth home run of the season.
“It was a bad pitch because I threw it before and (Kiermaier) didn’t swing good so I guess he was waiting for that one,” Perez said through a Spanish interpretation by coach Eddie Perez.
That was the one big mistake by Perez, and the Braves could do little against Ramirez. They got two hits in both the first and second innings against Ramirez, and then none over the next five.
Ramirez retired 16 batters in a row from the final out of the second inning until Adonis Garcia led off the eighth with a single. Brandon Gomes replaced Ramirez and struck out Andrelton Simmons and retired Eury Perez on a fielder’s choice before right fielder Daniel Naba made a running catch on Michael Bourn’s drive to the corner.
“I felt like we hit the ball pretty good, actually,” Bourn said. “(Ramirez) dodged a couple bullets but he threw the ball good, as well. I never like to take nothing away from a pitcher if they end up shutting us out. He was real efficient. He was throwing lot of strikes. We hit some balls hard, he threw some good pitches as well.”
The Braves concluded the game when A.J. Pierzynski grounded into a double play.
In his previous start, Ramirez gave up five earned runs in six inning against the Chicago White Sox. That was a rough spot in what’s been a strong season for the player the Rays acquired in March from the Mariners for Mike Montgomery — a lefty for righty prospect swap.
Williams Perez matched Ramirez by pitching around four walks. He benefited from crisp defense behind him: The Braves turned double plays on ground balls in the first and fifth inning and center fielder Cameron Maybin got the final out in the fourth by making a leaping catch just before he crashed into the wall.
Perez ran into trouble in the second inning when Logan Forsythe hit a one-out single and Asdrubal Cabrera ripped a ground-rule double. Perez stopped the threat by getting Daniel Nava and Kevin Kiermaier to fly out.
The Braves nearly took an early lead on Maybin’s acrobatic play at the plate.
After Maybin’s one-out single in the first inning, Nick Markakis hit a line drive to the corner in right field. Maybin rounded third base as right fielder Daniel Nava corralled the ball and threw a relay to second baseman Forsythe.
Forsythe’s throw to catcher Curt Casali beat Maybin to the plate but he popped up from his feet-first slide and tried to dive head first for the score. Casali missed Maybin on the initial tag attempt but managed to touch Maybin’s left hand before he could scramble to the plate.
The Braves stranded two base runners when Eury Perez grounded out in the second inning.
“Really that’s pretty much all we got the rest of the way,” Gonzalez said. “It was just a good, well-played ball game. We hit the ball hard and they caught it, and they hit one ball out of the ballpark and they win the ballgame. There’s not much you can say about that one.”
