A simple fact that "theraysparty" was not privvy to, was that Richmond, his arm not fully recovered from his win against the Reds, was pitching with an acutely inflammed biceps tendon which resulted in him being sent to the DL, subsequent to his start against the Rays. His opening fastball clocked in at more like 88mph instead of his normal 93-94, and Upton guessed right and hit it like it was batting practice. Realizing that he had 5-6 mph less available on his fastball, Richmond adjusted quickly and threw BJ a mixture of offspeed stuff that he couldn't hit, which was just smart baseball and employing the kind of savvy that good pitchers need to be able to rely on when they don't have their best stuff....for whatever reason.
As a testament to Richmond's gutty performance and savvy, he lasted a full 7 innings while giving up only 2 more runs, was given 7 strikeouts by ump Estabrooks, when he should have had 10 or 11 at least and walked 5, when only one would have been the case had Estabrooks had any clue to what a legit strike zone was that day......all the commentators mentioned it, even Tampa's.
Joe Madden was amazed that Crawford was able to even get his bat on the ball with his HR swing, let alone hit it out, but it was a fat hanging breaking ball that Aybar sent over the fence.
Madden also said after the game that Richmond reminded him a lot of Doc Halladay, which was pretty high praise indeed.
So in answer to your analysis, I don't really think that BJ scared anybody at all. It could be argued that he guessed right this time and was lucky that it wasn't a 93 or 94 mph FB, which would have been fouled off or popped up, but such are the vagaries of baseball.

Too bad the Blue Jay bats were on vacation, but had the strike zone been called even slightly more realistically, Richmond, even without his best stuff, still could have won that game, because Garza did nothing special to distinguish himself.