Jul 25
Durham 7, Norfolk 2. Tony Peguero making just his 8th start for Durham, allowed 2 runs in 6 innings to pick up his 2nd win of the year. Jon Weber was 2-5 an hit his second home run since being acquired by the Devil Rays. He now has 7 RBI in 5 games. After struggling most of the season at Durham, Ben Zobrist was 2-3 and is 14-36 in the last 10 games (.389) to boost his average up to .276. A name we haven’t mentioned much this year, Elliot Johnson was 2-3 with a double and 2 RBI. He now has multi-hit games in 6 of his last 10 (.378) but is still only hitting .217 on the year.
Mobile 9, Montgomery 5. James Houser gave up 6 runs (4 earned) in 5 innings to drop to 4-4 on the season. Three players collected three hits, including Fernando Perez (3-5) and Evan Longoria (3-4). Reid Brignac was 1-5 but did collect his 13th home run, a 2-run shot in the 9th.
Mahoning Valley 13, Hudson Valley 3.
NOTES FROM DOWN ON THE FARM…
- Bulls catcher Michel Hernandez extended his hitting streak to 15. [Herald Sun]
- The Vero Beach Rays game versus Jupiter was postponed due to rain.
- The Columbus Catfish game versus Kannapolis was postponed due to rain.
- The Princeton Rays had two games postponed due to rain. Their regularly scheduled game versus Burlington, as well as a second game versus Bluefield that was a makeup for a previously canceled game.
Jun 18
Durham 7, Indy 3. Rocco Baldelli didn’t waste anytime getting his bat warmed up. In just the second at bat of his first live action in over a month, Baldelli hit a solo home run. He finished the game 1-3 with a walk as the Bulls’ DH. Justin Ruggiano went 3-4 and is now hitting .296. He also stole his 11th base. Ben Zobrist was 0-4 and committed his 9th error…On the mound, some guy name Jae Seo made his second minor league start giving up 3 runs in 5 innings.
Jacksonville 5, Montgomery 4. James Houser returned from a strained quad and gave up 3 runs before being pulled with 2 outs in the 5th. Reid Brignac was 1-4 and Evan Longoria was 1-2 with an RBI. John Jaso hit his 6th home run.
Greenville 12, Columbus 7. Heath Rollins was pounded for the 3rd straight start. This time he allowed 9 runs (8 earned) in 3 innings on 8 hits and 2 walks. Desmond Jennings was 4-4 with 3 doubles to raise his average to .297.
NOTES FROM DOWN ON THE FARM…
May 03
Devil Rays 4, Twins 3.
Delmon Young likes to throw things very hard and very far and very accurately. We call it Gettin’ A Delmon…Jason Kubel Got A Delmon…In the 4th inning, Kubel rambled a little too far towards second base on a line drive to Delmon Young in right center. Despite catching the ball while moving away from first base, Young turned and fired a pea to Carlos Pena at first to double-up Kubel and get the Rays out of the inning…Justin Morneau Got A Delmon…In the 6th inning, Morneau hit a rocket off the right field wall that would be a double on any other night. But on this night Delmon Young was roaming the FieldTurf II of the Trop. He played the ball off the wall, spun and fired a rocket to Brendan Harris at second base. Both Kubel and Morneau should just be grateful that Young wasn’t throwing a bat.
As for the rest of the game, the Rays once again were able to get to Twins closer Joe Nathan, scoring 2 in the 9th to tie the game. In 3 appearances this season against the Rays (3 innings) Nathan has given up 9 hits and 4 runs. In his other 10 appearances (10.1 innings) he has allowed only 10 hits and 1 run. In the bottom of the 10th inning (the Rays first extra inning affair of the year) Ben Zobrist fell rounding third base on Harris’ double, but made up for the gaffe beating the throw home on Dioner Navarro’s ground ball to short.
The Rays are now in sole possession of third place in the AL East, 5.5 games behind the Red Sox and only 1 game behind the Jays for 2nd place. Even more intriguing is that the Rays are only 4 games back in the wild card. But that is the last time we will mention that number until the Rays reach a more important milestone, .500. In our minds there are three numbers the Rays are chasing. 6.5 games is the Rays “mark” in the AL East. 4 games in the Rays mark in the wild card race, but neither of those numbers mean anything until the Rays reach “The Charlie Hough Line”. For his career Hough was 216-216. The knuckleballer was the epitome of a .500 pitcher. The Rays cannot think of any other teams until they first surpass Hough’s career winning percentage. So from now on we will only speak in terms of “Games behind Charlie Hough”. Right now the Rays are 1.5 games behind Charlie Hough.
DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…
- The Rays base stealing is greatly improved in the last 10 days. After only being successful on 14 of their first 27 attempts, the Rays have stolen 14 of their last 17.
- Josh Hamilton was named NL Rookie of the Month for April. During the month, Hamilton, who started the season as a reserve, hit .266 with 6 home runs, 16 RBI and a stolen base.
- Akinori Iwamura finished second in the AL Rookie of the Month voting to fellow Japanese rookie Hideki Okajima of the Red Sox.
- Greg Norton has been getting at bats in extended spring training, and will begin a rehab assignment in Montgomery on Friday, where he will get 27-30 at bats (6-7 games). Norton should be back with the Rays a week from Friday when the Rays begin a series in Toronto.
- Now that Benny Boo Boo is on the bench, he has more free time to visit local school children. The upsetting part is that apparently BenZo was accompanied by his wife and mlb.com could not provide us with any pictures. That’s ok, we still have Julianne’s MySpace page.
- FoxSports has their first power ranking of the season and the Rays come in at #22. Might be the highest we have ever seen the Devil Rays ranked in any power rankings. Of course they mention that Jeff Niemann is returning from Tommy John surgery. Must have him mixed up with Wade Townsend.
Apr 22
Devil Rays 6, Cleveland 5.
After last night’s victory the Rays have another opportunity to win a series when James Shields takes the mound. Last night the Rays battled back from an early 2-0 deficit and rebounded after blowing a 5-2 lead. Jae Seo picked up just his second win as a Devil Ray, but gave up 5 runs in 6 innings. Four pitchers combined to shut down the Indians over the last 3 innings, including another perfect 9th by Al Reyes for his 6th save in 6 chances. Ty Wigginton went 3-4 with his 4th homer and Delmon Young and BJ Upton each added 2 hits. Upton raised his average to .340.
- Ben Zobrist was dropped form the 2-hole to the 8th spot. In reality, he should just be happy he was in the lineup. Without BenZo in the lineup, Joe Maddon will utilize the spot much differently.
- Travis Hafner continues to beat up on the Rays.
- The Rays have only had one game decided by more than 4 runs (12-5 loss to Twins).
- Everybody loves the Rays lineup. So do we, but it is like icing on a cake. The icing is great, but doesn’t do much without a cake to cover. The Rays are still the only team in baseball with an ERA over 6.
- Everybody.
- Jake Westbrook goes to the mound for the Indians today. In his last start, his first after signing a contract extension, he gave up three home runs and 8 runs in 1.2 innings.
- A Mets fan actually attended a game at the Trop before passing judgment and came to the conclusion that it is not that bad.
- Should we feel bad for the interpreter when he tells the press that Aki Iwamura wants to speak English fluently? When that happens, the interpreter is out of a job.
- If you were running the Devil Rays, what would your 2009 lineup look like?
Apr 10
The Rays dropped their third straight, 8-4 to the Rangers in Arlington. Edwin Jackson made hist first start of the season. He had pop on his fastball, hitting 96-97 regularly. He also had control, with only 1 walk. But he did not have command. He gave up 8 hits and did not make it out of the 6th. Still, he left with 2 outs in the 6th with two runners on and the scored 2-2. It took three pitchers to record the final out of the 6th inning, and by the time Gary Glover got the third out, the Rays bullpen had allowed 6 runs to cross the plate. Carl Crawford who we think will hit 30 home runs this season, hit his second on the young season.
- Joe Maddon will consider production at DH to help decide who plays center field on a regular basis. That sounds like a great idea! So if Elijah Dukes wants to play center instead of DH (and why wouldn’t he?) his 0-4 last night as DH actually helps him.
- Tonight’s starter for the Rangers, Jamey Wright, is not on the active roster. To make room, Texas may have to release Bruce Chen unless they can trade him today.
- Usually we find player diaries boring, but in this case we were actually captivated. Akinori Iwamura recounts his first week in the major leagues, which includes receiving a shaving cream pie to the face from James Shields.
- Baseball Musings wonders allowed if the Rays picked up the steal of the off-season in Akinori Iwamura.
- Ben Zobrist led the Rays in hitting this spring. Unfortunately it looks as though he used up all his hits in March.
- Minor League Ball wants to know who you think Jeff Niemann will compare most favorably to. We say he already compares to this guy!
- SportsIllustrated.com has released their first power rankings for 2007. The Devil Rays debut with a respectable #21, one spot ahead of the 2005 World Series champions.
- Diasuke Matsuzaka of the Red Sox may not throw the Gyroball, but Akinori Iwamura sure does. Or at least he likes to throw it during practice.
- The Indians, who have already had 46 games snowed out, are moving their upcoming series with the Angels to Miller Park in Milwaukee. Before they did, they called to see see if the Trop was available.
Feb 25
This hottie attractive lady is Julianna, the wife of Rays shortstop Ben Zobrist. In this piece, we learned that Julianna is an aspiring singer. In fact, not only is she a singer, but she would like to use that music to get in touch with your Christian sensibilities (or whatever the purpose of Christian Rock is).
We were curious and found Julianna’s MySpace page. Unfortunately it does not look like Ben has his own MySpace page, and there is not a lot of personal information. However, we did learn from Julianna’s comment sections that at least one of their friends refers to Ben as Benny-Boo. ahhh, how cute! There is also a picture from Ben and Julianna’s wedding…and here we have a picture of Ben showing off his baserunning skills?
We admit that we have a lot of different genre of music on our iPod, but Christian Rock is not among them. We always thought that Christian Rock singers just wore turtle necks and ankle-length skirts (and those are just the guys). If more Christian Rock singers look like Julianna, we might be willing to give it a shot. How bad could it be if her inspirations include Radiohead?
