Archer again ended a Rays' losing streak./JEFFREY S. KING
Sunday, 2 a.m.
There are days he looks sharp. There are days he looks dominant.
With Chris Archer, there are days he looks like the stopper for the Tampa Bay Rays.
Archer was at it again Saturday, snapping a three-game losing streak in a 3-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers. It was the third time this season that Archer has stopped a three-game skid for the Rays, not bad when you consider he has only five victories on the season.
Archer went six innings and allowed only two earned runs for the Rays. He struck out eight, a bit low for him. He had struck out
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Colome got the final five outs the game../JEFFREY S. KING
double-digit batters in five of his previous eight games. He now has 122 strikeouts, second in the American League.
One of the finest attributes a pitcher can have is the ability to say "no more" when things are going badly. Archer has now done that three times this season. On April 14 and again on May 1-, he stopped three games slides by his team.
Saturday, he did it again.
Archer has struggled with the home run ball this season, and Miguel Cabrera hit a sixth-inning homer to put the Tigers ahead 2-1. However, in the sixth, Daniel Robertson knocked in a run on an infield single to tie the game. Mallex Smith then knocked in the go-ahead run.
Both Robertson and Smith had two hits on the day.
Alex Colome recorded the final five outs of the game for his 19th save.
"Colome, we haven't done that in a while, to ask him for a five-out save," Rays' manager Kevin Cash said. "We wanted to pitch him today regardless. I don't know if he wanted to pitch that much, but we got him to pitch. And he got a lot of big outs for us."
Rookie Jake Faria goes for his third win today against the Tigers' Buck Farmer.
Robertson had two hits to lead the Rays./JEFFREY S. KING
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