The Andrew Miller experiment has hit a rather large bump in the road courtesy of the Tampa Bay Rays, who scored seven runs off the lefty, knocking him out with just two down in the third inning.
The problems for Miller were two-fold: his fastball was sitting in the low 90s instead of the mid 90s, and his command was, as it has often been in the past, spotty at best. Allowing a of one-run first and two-run third, Miller found not even the smallest streak of success; but it was the second inning that really did him in. With the first two men reaching for the Rays, Sam Fuld laid down a sacrifice bunt, but Jarrod Saltalamacchia tried to go to second and couldn't get the out.
With the bases now loaded, Johnny Damon grounded the ball the Dustin Pedroia, who fired home for the out. Ben Zobrist came up, and was clearly waiting to see the changeup that had been shown him so often in his first at bat. Receiving what he wanted with the first pitch, Zobrist took a mighty hack and unloaded the bases with a grand slam.
The Sox have a pair of solo shots of their own from Darnell McDonald and Jacoby Ellsbury, but Miller's implosion may have effectively ended this game very, very early.