Tampa Bay Rays (43-39) vs. Houston Astros (30-52) 7:10 PM (CT)

Tampa Bay at Houston, 7:10 pm (CT)

TV: CSN Houston
Radio: KBME 790 AM, KLAT 1010 AM
Rays SBNation Blog: DRaysBay

Pitching Match

LHP Matt Moore (10-3 / 3.95 ERA / 1.40 WHIP) vs. LHP Dallas Keuchel ( 4-4 / 4.34 ERA / 1.46 WHIP)

Preview

The Rays come to the Juice Box today currenlty third in the American League East standings. Six game off the pace set by the improbable Red Sox. The Astros have already faced the other half of the blockbuster Wil Myers trade made this offseason by the Rays, Wade Davis and James Shields. Now Houston faces the main piece to deal, Will Myers. The Rays' starting right fielder Myers is batting .296 (16/54), 3 homeruns and 9 RBI with .309 on-base percentage and .481 slugging percentage.

The Rays offense still revolves around Evan Longoria, the All-Star third baseman has 47 RBI in 80 appearances. Former Dodger castoff and direct replacement for Carlos Pena, James Loney is batting .400 over his last 25 at-bats. Luke Scott returns to his old stomping ground and is batting .250 with 6 RBI over his last 10 games.

Matt Moore takes the mound today for the Rays, after salvaging a ghastly June performance with six innings of one run ball against Toronto to close out the month. Moore's ERA in June was 8.39 with a 2.19 WHIP. Only Chris Carter is the only Astros (outside of Carlos Pena who is still out ) with any previous at-bats against Moore, he is 0-2.

Dallas Keuchel will be taking the ball opposite of Moore. The big left-hander from Arkansas made his last appearance out of the bullpen. Stepping in for Lucas Harrell in the third inning after he gave up seven earned runs. In his 2 2/3 innings of work, Keuchel gave up a homerun to Carlos Beltran. The Astros lefty closed out the month of June with an ERA of 3.00 and four quality starts. Loney and Longoria are both batting over .350 against left-handed pitching this season.