Indians 2, Devil Rays 1.
The entire evening you could sense the impending doom. It didn’t come in the first 6 innings as Edwin Jackson pitched his way around trouble with his third straight decent outing. We were sure it would come in the 7th inning when Jay Witasick walked two batters but Casey Fossum was able to kill the rally by getting Travis Hafner to ground out to end the inning. We thought it might come in the 8th inning, when Gary Glover gave up a single after striking out the first two batters. But Glover got out of the inning by getting Josh Barfield to pop up to Ty Wigginton.
But that was when the axe fell. We thought about who was left in the bullpen. Joe Maddon had already used three relievers. That meant that only three relievers were left in the ‘pen. With the Rays on the road, Al Reyes needed to be saved in case the Rays were to take the lead and a save opportunity arose. Maddon could have gone to Jason Hammel, but he faced 7 batters the night before and is not yet used to pitching on consecutive days. In addition, Maddon needed to keep Hammel in the back pocket in case the game went extra innings.
This is why we hate the definition of a “quality start”. Six innings from your starting pitcher is NOT a quality start. A quality start should be a minimum of 7+1+1, meaning the team gets 7 innings from the starter and then he hands the ball to the set up man for 1 and then to the closer for 1. With Jackson only going 6 innings, it forces the manager to use the entire bullpen to get through the game. In this case, if Maddon was going to pull Glover after one inning, that left one relief pitcher to come out for the ninth inning. Shawn Bleepin’ Camp. As soon as we saw Camp come into the game, our heads dropped and we heard millions hundreds of Rays fans everywhere scream out in pain. The game was over, the players just didn’t know it yet.
Shawn Bleepin’ Camp. He makes us want to hurt baby stuffed animals.
DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…
- Last night? We started with a little A, mixing in the occasional C and D, mostly when the Rays were hitting. When Joe Maddon brought in Shawn Camp we moved into full-fledged B with lots of C and D. When the home run was hit, we fell deep into E.
- Why is all of the Devil Rays’ media obsessed with the idea that A Devil Ray could still be elected to start the All-Star game? On Friday afternoon, AL All-Star manager Jim Leyland called Joe Maddon to seek his opinion on which Devil Ray was most deserving of being an all-star. Leyland was scheduled to call ever manager for a team that did not have an elected representative. That’s nice, but then Carter Gaddis throws in this rediculous line…
But, Maddon said, Leyland hadn’t learned the elected players’ names by the time the two spoke Friday afternoon. So the phone call didn’t necessarily mean the Rays had no players elected.
- Technically true.
- NO DEVIL RAYS ARE GOING TO GET ELECTED TO START THE ALL-STAR GAME…
- If Carter Gaddis thinks that a player that got 450,000 votes in the first 62 days of voting, might somehow get 800,000 in the last 3 days of voting, then Carter Gaddis is an idiot.
- In the Rays last 540 games, Rocco Baldelli has played in 263 and missed 277.
- The Devil Rays had an awful second half in 2006. The Rays second half schedule could mean we are in for a repeat. And if the Rays trade Al Reyes...I just threw up in my mouth a little. If we have to reintroduce the “The David Price Sweepstakes” we will hurt a stuffed animal named Shawn Camp.
