Postgame Shot Of Joe: With Offense, Rays Scary
Uncategorized August 17th. 2010, 11:41pm
Man, this is starting to be scary stuff.
Scary good.
Joe is trying to temper his excitement but it’s hard to when you consider the Rays throttled the American League West-leading Rangers.
Consider the Rays banged out 15 hits. No, that’s not a typo. The Rays had 15 hits and crossed the plate 10 times (even though Bossman tried his best Lou Brock/1968 World Series impression and damned near was tagged out at the plate).
What is with this sudden burst of offense? Bossman has found his bat. If Bossman can come close to hitting the rest of the season as he has in recent games, the team that resides at the Fruitdome is a very, very scary team.
Matt Garza was simply superb. Racking up 10 strikeouts in seven innings is damn fine pitching. Bravo.
Well, the Rays have won the series against a team they very well could face in the playoffs. Get the brooms ready for tomorrow afternoon, though with James “No Game” Shields pitching, Joe isn’t very comfortable.
The most interesting thing Wednesday is if Shields gets tagged (again), is he on his way to Durham or Port Charlotte to try to work out some kinks? Currently with Hellboy on the parent club, Shields is the Rays No. 5 starter.
Oh, and Joe forgot to add: Your first-place Rays.
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Ahh… I always enjoy a nice drubbing. Espescially, when you do it against another 1st place team. It was great that Matt pitched an excellent game to get his 12th win, but tonight he could have pitched like “No Game” Shields and still won, because the offense was SMOAKIN! When two players on your team finish the game one hit away from getting a cycle, you know that offense was running on all cylinders! 10 runs on 15 hits isn’t a bad indication, either.
What a great game all around for the Rays!Lets get the sweep tomorrow guys!
Oh, and Joe. Nice job of using the “Lou Brock/1968 World Series”, to B.J. almost getting taged out at home. All around, it was a very good post!
R.I.P. Bobby Thomson.
That was a really fun game to watch, feels like it’s been too long since they had one of these games where the outcome was so sure by the 7th inning(in their favor). But I won’t get my hopes up on this offense again until I see some REAL consistency. They have crushed my spirits so many times the last 2 seasons when they go on a tear and I think they finally put it all together and then they lose 7 in row. Going by the pattern of the last 2 seasons we are going to see them get shut out and almost no-hit again in the afternoon. And they will not put Hellboy in over Shields, Big Game will keep getting his chances no matter what the outcome. Stubborn, they are.
You’re right they won’t put Hellboy in over Shields. I keep thinking back to an earlier post which contained the quote “the needs of the prospect come before the needs of the team” for the Rays. I imagine that Hellboy’s pitches and innings count are getting up there and if they do want him available in any capacity in the playoffs, they will have to find a way to curtail his numbers a bit.
Shields HAS to get it going though. This dude was the opening day starter, and when was the last time a team with the best record in baseball did not have their opening day starter pitch in the playoffs? He needs this for his confidence, and we need it for the team’s confidence in him.
Today will be a telling game. I’m remaining VERY cautiously optimistic but hoping that he gets it done.
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Man, Bossman has been strokin’. Even on 1-4 or 1-5 days the 1 is a double in a good spot. Like most people with a brain have said before, if BJ is on his game this team is in the upper echelon. That to me is the reason for all the BJ talk, whether it be good or bad- it’s that everyone knows this guy is capable of being that extra oomf, think ’08 playoffs.
Let’s hope this offense stays hot all the way through November!
“even though Bossman tried his best Lou Brock/1968 World Series impression and damned near was tagged out at the plate”
Don’t know what is more grating, the way DRaysbay defends Upton to the end, or the way this site will always try to find a negative regarding his play. Now he’s being penalized for things that almost went wrong in a blowout.
Not sure why you think we are always negative on BJ. Upton has been in “The Good” twice this week that I remember. It is strange that the Upton-issue has become so polarizing that ANY mention of something that could be considered even minutely negative all of the sudden brands somebody an Upton Hater.
Quite simply, because raysindex wouldn’t have pointed this out had it been any other player. Would this have been pointed out had zobrist almost gotten tagged at the plate?
ugh. below is a quote from this site just three weeks ago after Matt Garza’s no-hitter…
“Every no-hitter has at least one great defensive play and Ben Zobrist delivered for Matt Garza with a great running and leaping grab in the 3rd inning. Of course only Zobrist makes that play look hard. BJ Upton would have gotten to that spot, eaten a sandwich and still would have been waiting for the ball to come down.”
ugh
“Upton’s head-up-his ass, rally-killer baserunning surely didn’t surprise Joe or any Rays fan”…”Joe’s calling for Bossman to have mandatory sessions with a new cutting-edge team shrink for the stretch run.”
So is your point that SOMETIMES we are critical of Upton or is it as you originally stated?
Because picking out 1 or 2 examples is hardly an example of ALWAYS, especially since I can find dozens of other examples of this site praising Upton. Sample size my friend, sample size.
Listen, I know that Upton is a polarizing figure and a lot of fans love him and a lot of fans hate him. And then there are fans that sometimes love him and sometimes hate him.
And yes, sometimes we are critical of Upton. But we are also critical of a lot of players. If you think some of the criticism is unjustified, that’s fine, I’ve been wrong many times. But there is no hidden agenda. Sometimes we praise. Sometimes we are critical. I just don’t understand why this site has been painted “The Anti-BJ Site” when we have defended and praised Upton on so many occasions.
Once again they stayed with the aggressive hitting theme. It wasn’t just because of Cliff Lee. The last three or four games we have been able to get hits on pitches outside the zone. Good stuff. Swing the bats, make things happen