Buehrle, Dickey, Morrow’s Best Starts Against Rays

September 21, 2011; Cleveland, OH , USA; Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Mark Buehrle (56) during the first inning in the game against the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric P. Mull-USA TODAY SportsOne of the main reasons the Toronto Blue Jays were “World Series favorites” before the season started was because all their starting pitchers are good pitchers with track records.

For Mark Buehrle, Brandon Morrow and R.A. Dickey their best career starts were all against the Blue Jays division rival Tampa Bay Rays.

On July 23, 2009 Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game against the Rays in his home ball park US Cellular Field. Buehrle cruised through the Rays lineup as you can tell from the game lasting 2 hours and 3 minutes. At the time, the Rays had a 343 on base percentage. Two of the Rays batters hit a foul ball very close to the fair territory down the left field line. Five of the Rays hitters had a full count. DeWayne Wise made a homerun stealing catch in the 9th. Without that catch it would have been a 1 hitter which isn’t bad either.

On August 8, 2010 Brandon Morrow threw a complete game 17 strikeout 1 hitter against the Rays in his home ball park Rogers Centre. Morrow had a no-hitter going through 8 2/3 innings until Evan Longoria broke it up with an infield single! Morrow would have been the first Blue Jay since Dave Stieb in 1992 to throw a no hitter. It was also Morrow’s FIRST career complete game, that’s getting your first career complete game in style! Morrow’s 17 strikeouts in a game was just one less than the Blue Jays record of 18 strikeouts by Roger Clemens in 1998.

On June 13, 2012 R.A. Dickey threw a 1 hitter against the Rays at Tropicana field. He struck out 12 hitters which was a career high at the time. He didn’t walk a single hitter and only faced 29 hitters in total because of an error which is just 2 over the minimum if you didn’t know. The only hit Dickey gave up was an infield single that Mets third baseman David Wright didn’t field cleanly. The New York Mets formally appealed the official scorekeeping of the only hit allowed to be changed to an error on Wright in an attempt to make it a no hitter but MLB denied the appeal.

Now obviously the Rays have different players now than they did when 3/5 of the Blue Jays rotation had their best career starts against them. But for 3/5 of the Blue Jays rotation playing the Rays should always give them some good memories.