Apr 27
FIRST INNING (A look back)…
The Rays have the best record in baseball and have won 11 of their last 13…How good is this team?
The Rays are on pace to win 119 games, so no, they are not *this* good. But they are pretty good. And what is really promising is that this team doesn’t have to be this good the rest of the way. 94 wins should be good enough for a playoff spot and the Rays need only go 80-63 the rest of the way to win 94 games. This team can do that in their sleep. Compare that to the Red Sox who would have to go 86-57 to reach 94 wins. There is a big difference between playing 17-games over .500 and playing 29 games over .500…..THIS IS A PLAYOFF TEAM
SECOND INNING (Headlines)…
With Kelly Shoppach on the shelf for a while, John Jaso has made the most of his few starts…Should Jaso be starting against all right-handed starters?
Dioner Navarro cannot hit righties and probably should have abandoned switch-hitting a long time ago. But when Shoppach returns, both Navi and Shoppi will be facing righties. So it wouldn’t be a good idea to cut Navi off from righties now only to have him back in there at some point down the road. More likely, we will see Jaso and Navarro split the duties against righties….NOT YET
Read the rest of this entry »
Apr 27
One of our readers pointed us to the coolest thing we have read in a while (thanks Thad). It is The Life of the Baseball Wife. The idea in and of itself is pretty cool. But what makes it even better, is that most of the authors are married to current or former Rays or Rays prospects including:
Nicole Johnson (wife of Elliot Johnson)
Shelly Ruggiano (wife of Justin Ruggiano)
Kelli Ridgway (wife of Jeff Ridgway)
Katelyn Davis (wife of Wade Davis)
Jamie Cormier (wife of Lance Cormier)
Nicole Houser (wife of James Houser)
Wendy Owens (wife of Jeremy Owens)
There are the cool stories by Nicole Johnson on her husband’s dreaded 2007 season, and what they went through this spring when Elliot was placed on (and cleared) waivers. And there is the amazing story by Wade Davis’ wife about how she was afraid to fly so her dad bought her softball team a nice bus so that they could still compete in tournaments as far away as Texas (she lived in upstate New York).
Anyway, it is a very cool site with a lot of potential and we are sure it will show up in the “Webtopia” from time to time.
Apr 27
Fernando Perez and the Rays have finally dropped the switch-hitting experiment. And so far it is taking pretty well. Insert the usual “DANGER, DANGER, small sample size ahead” alert.
Still, it is nice to see he is off to a decent start. You gotta figure this is the adjustment period and that it will only get better.
Now if the Rays would just do the same with Dioner Navarro.
Apr 27
The Rays announced today that Dioner Navarro has been suspended two games by Major League Baseball for bumping an umpire. The suspension is set to begin tonight.
Jose Lobaton has been called up from Durham to be the backup catcher during Navi’s absence. To make room, Mike Ekstrom has been optioned to Durham.
Apr 27
Noah Pransky points us (via Twitter) to this must read at Field of Schemes and the quest for a new Rays stadium. Here is the home run swing:
To sum up: If everything broke right, a new Rays stadium might bring in enough money for the team to turn a profit on it, barely. The only way for the Rays to get a windfall, then, would be to have the public pay for it — and even then (since they’d lose their stadium deduction), about a third of the new revenue would get siphoned off by MLB revenue sharing. So taxpayers are effectively being asked to foot the bill for $30 million in annual stadium subsidies, so that the Rays can get maybe $20-30 million more a year in net revenues.
In even simpler words: The Rays wouldn’t make money on the stadium. They’d make money on the subsidy. And that, in a nutshell, is what’s driving the new-stadium game: not obsolete stadiums, but the desire for public cash.
We have no idea how close the numbers in the article are to reality. But if the math is even in the neighborhood, the suggestion is that the Rays would actually turn a profit if they footed the entire bill for the stadium. But it would not be very much. No, if the Rays want to really cash in on a new stadium, they need the subsidy. And if the taxpayers do pay up, a percentage of their money must be kicked up to MLB’s revenue sharing program.
And the rich get richer.
Apr 27
Below you will see three polls that ask about your confidence in the Tampa Bay Rays. We will present these same polls most Tuesdays. The results will be presented in graphical form on Thursday, and will be displayed permanently in the sidebar. The goal of the Confidence Graph is to get a feeling of how Rays fans feel about the team and the franchise and track how that level of confidence changes through time.
Apr 27
The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
click above image for boxscore
THE GOOD: Offense? The Rays are only 7th in the AL in hitting (.259), 5th in OBP (.342) and 6th in slugging (.431), but they lead the AL in runs scored (113). Why the disparity? The Rays are hitting when it matters most. in 216 plate appearances with runners in scoring position, the Rays are hitting .318 (1st in the AL), have a .413 OBP (1st in the AL) and have a league-best OPS of .964, which is 150 points higher than the next best team (Boston)…Starting Pitching. The Rays starting pitchers have the second best ERA in the AL (2.81) and they lead the AL with 6.4 innings per start.
THE BAD: Relief Pitching. One reason the Rays starters work so deep into games is to hide a weak bullpen. So far this season, the Rays relievers are 9th in the AL with a 4.13 ERA even though they have the 3rd best batting average against (.227)…Basestealing. The mathematical cutoff for success stealing is 75%. Less than that and the team might be losing runs (although it can be argued that the affect of stolen bases goes beyond the success rate). The Rays are tied with the White Sox for the AL lead with 21 stolen bases, but they have also been thrown a league leading 10 times leading to the 4th worst success rate in the AL (68%).
THE TELLING: The Rays now begin a stretch of 7 straight series (20 games) against non-AL East opponents.
DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- Andrew Friedman made an appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show.” The only telling statement is when Friedman refers to a sold out Trop as “like a 10th man,” which may or may not have been a Freudian slap to the face of Pat Burrell. Here is the link to the audio if you are so inclined. [Audio]
- Steve Slowinski attempts to quantify the difference between John Jaso and Dioner Navarro and whether the Rays should stick with Jaso once Kelly Shoppach returns. [DRays Bay]
- Aneury Rodriguez was named the IL pitcher of the week, one week after Jeremy Hellickson won the same award. [Rays Prospects]
- Joe Henderson takes a matter-of-fact look at the Rays attendance woes. [Tampa Tribune]
- John Romano writes about the path Leslie Anderson took from Cuba to the Rays and how he is adjusting with his new club. [St. Pete Times]
- Rays Prospects informs us that Wade Townsend has signed with an independent team. [Twitter]
- An Astros short-season team will be giving away Ben Zobrist bobbleheads. There will only be 1,200 of them so you can expect them to not be cheap on eBay. [Rays Rev]
- Virgil Vasquez actually has two broken wrists, suffered in a car accident. [St. Pete Times]
- Angela Jacobs has some quotes from John Jaso on his early success with the Rays. [10Connects.com]
- Rays now sit atop ESPN.com’s power rankings. [ESPN]
DOWN ON THE FARM…
- Check out “The Rundown” from Rays Prospects for boxscores and more detailed recaps. [Rays Prospects]
- DURHAM: Heath Rollins made his first start in place of the injured Virgil Vasquez. He allowed 4 runs in 4 innings…Fernando Perez was 1-5 with 3 strikeouts…Dan Johnson hit his league leading 8th home run…Hank Blalock started at third base and collected 2 more hits. He is now hitting .396 with a .455 OBP. Of his 19 hits, only 2 are for extra-bases.
- MONTGOMERY: Darin Downs pitched 5.2 shutout innings but was pulled after being hit in the leg by a comebacker…Nevin Ashley was 0-4.
- CHARLOTTE: Nick Barnese gave up 3 runs in 6 innings on 3 hits and a walk. He struck out 5…Isaias Velasquez went 4-5 with 3 stolen bases. He is now second in the FSL with 8 steals…Tim Beckham went 0-3 with 2 walks. He is just 4-39 (.103) to start the year…Matt Sweeney was 2-4.
- BOWLING GREEN: (no game scheduled)
Apr 26
We honestly have no idea why the Tampa Tribune is insistent and publishing stories on the Rays stadium issue every other day when there is nothing new to talk about. And we really have no idea why they would just reprint a previous story on the front page of their Sunday paper. Noah Pransky has the details. Slow news day? [Shadow of the Stadium]
Apr 26
The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
click above image for boxscore
THE GOOD: David Price. Anybody still think King David should be in the bullpen? His first career complete game and his first career shutout. And he got better as the game moved along. In the final 4 innings, Price threw only 35 pitches. He struck out 9 and walked just 1…BJ Upton. Even though it was a pitch in on his hands, Upton pushed a double down the rightfield line to help start the rally in the 5th. Eventually Bossman’s efforts to go opposite-field will lead to even more pitchers trying to pitch him inside. And when that happens, the home runs will really start flying as Upton unleashes one of the fastest bats in baseball…Patience. The 8 hits were good, but the 8 walks were even better. Just one reason the Rays have scored 12 more runs than any other team in the AL…Evan Longoria, had 2 hits in each game of the series, going 2-4 yesterday. He is hitting .324 early on. But his biggest contribution came in the 8th inning with the Rays nursing a 2-0 lead. With a runner on first, Dirtbag dove to his left turning John McDonald’s sure hit into a double-play.
THE BAD: Slow Start. The Rays were thrown out trying to steal 4 times in the first 4 innings including Carl Crawford twice. Jose Molina was the first catcher to throw out 4 in one game since 2002 and it was just the 3rd time Crawford has been thrown out twice in one game. There were only 4 other attempted steals against Molina prior to yesterday’s game and he had thrown out 3.
THE TELLING: Dioner Navarro was scratched from the lineup with a sore leg…The Rays drew 23,250 for yesterday’s game and just a hair over 23,000 per game for the weekend series…We did a very quick survey of the 2008 season and it appears that the Rays 14-5 mark equals the Rays best 19 game stretch that season…The Rays scored 4 runs in the 8th inning. That is the 15th time in the last 12 games they have scored at least 3 runs in one inning after doing that just 2 times in the first 7 games.
WHERE THEY STAND: The Rays are 14-5 and have the best record in baseball, 1.5 games ahead of the Yankees and 4 games ahead of the Blue Jays in the Wild Card race. After 19 games in 2008, the Rays were 8-11.
DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- In case you missed it yesterday, we welcomed a new weekend contributor to Rays Index. [Rays Index]
- Today’s Durham Bulls game will be aired on the MLB Network live at 11:00 AM (thanks Chris).
- Virgil Vasquez, the pitcher obtained from the Pirates just before the start of the season broke his wrist in a car accident. [Biscuit Crumbs]
- Joe Dillon’s home run yesterday hit the Bull at DBAP and won himself and an entire section of fans a free steak. [Twitter]
- Andy Hutchins says the Rays may be the best team in baseball right now. [The Sporting Blog]
DOWN ON THE FARM…
- Check out “The Rundown” from Rays Prospects for boxscores and more detailed recaps. [Rays Prospects]
- DURHAM: At 14-4, the Bulls actually have a better record than the Rays…Aneury Rodriguez gave up a leadoff double, but then settled down to retire 17 of the next 18 batters and did not allow another hit in 7 innings of work. He struck out 4 and walked 2. In 2 triple-A starts, Rodriguez has yet to allow a run and has given up just 5 hits in 14 innings with 10 Ks and 3 walks…Justin Ruggiano (4), Joe Dillon (2), Alvin Colina (2) and Chris Richard (2) homered for the Bulls…Fernando Perez was 2-5…Hank Blalock did not play.
- MONTGOMERY: Alex Torres pitched 6 shutout innings with 7 strikeouts in the first game of the double-header…Matt Fields went 0-7 with 3 strikeouts in the two games.
- CHARLOTTE: Matt Moore struck out 8 and walked 4 in 5 innings. He allowed 1 run…Matt Sweeney was 0-4 with 2 strikeouts.
- BOWLING GREEN: Jason McEachern pitched 6 shutout innings in game 1 and Shane Dyer pitched a 7-inning shutout in the nightcap.
