The Rays have made up 5 games on the Red Sox in less than a week. So needless to say there is some panic amongst those in Red Sox Nation. But what we didn’t expect was for there to be panic in the Red Sox dugout.

But that is exactly what David Ortiz says is going on…

“Hell, yeah, you’ve got to panic,” David Ortiz said.

While his teammates didn’t use words quite as strong, they sure don’t sound anymore confident. Dustin Pedroia sounded like a guy that is worried the Red Sox will miss the playoffs…

“We’ve just got to play better…I’m not really concerned. If we play good, we’ll win. We’re a pretty damned good team. We’ve just hit a tough patch…Because if we don’t, we’re going to home…That’s basically it. If we don’t play well, we go home.”

Meanwhile, the Red Sox own Read the rest of this entry »

The GBT – The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.

THE GOOD: Wade Davis. Big Dub picked up his 3rd straight win and worked into the 7th inning for the 3rd straight start. He struggled early, but rebounded to retire 10 of the final 12 batters he faced…Joaquin Benoit. Most are focused on the Rays losing Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena after the season, but the two most important pieces in the Rays bullpen, Rafael Soriano and Joaquin Benoit, could also be gone. Benoit came through again on Sunday. This time in the 7th inning. With the tying run on 2nd, Benoit got Shin-Soo Choo and Carlos Santana to ground out…Reid Brignac. Big game for Biggy Baseball who homered for the 4th time in his last 5 starts. He also helped Benoit out in the 7th with a diving stop in shallow right field on a ground ball to end the inning.

THE BAD: Baserunning. After the game, Joe Maddon said he had no problem with the “aggressive” baserunning even though it cost the Rays 4 outs in the 7th and 8th innings when the outcome of the game was still in doubt. The three pickoffs/caught stealings? Maybe. But John Jaso getting thrown out at third on a groundball in front of him was absolutely a mental mistake.

THE TELLING: Ben Zobrist started in center field…In 6 career starts versus the Tigers, Matt Garza is 0-4 with a 5.65 ERA…According to CoolStandings.com, the Rays have a 78.7% shot at making the playoffs. The Red Sox are only at 20.4%.

WHERE THEY STAND: The Rays are 59-38, 3 games behind the Yankees and 5 games ahead of the Red Sox in the Wild Card. After 97 games in 2008, the Rays were 57-40.

THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• Buster Olney speculates that the Red Sox will re-sign David Ortiz, in part because they are worried he would sign with the Rays next season at a discount just for the revenge factor (behind the Insider wall; thanks Thad). [ESPN]
• Roger Mooney doesn’t see Read the rest of this entry »

In a piece on the best and worst baseball decisions of the decade, Keith Law called the Red Sox, 1-year, $1.25 million contract to David Ortiz in 2003 as the best free agent signing.

Ortiz didn’t file for free agency after a 2002 season in which he slugged .500 for the Twins in 125 games, because he wasn’t eligible for free agency yet. The Twins didn’t like the idea of going through arbitration with him and instead released him a few days before the non-tender deadline. The Red Sox happened to have an opening at DH and an affinity for guys like Ortiz who hit for power and controlled the zone, so they gave him an almost riskless contract for just one year; if his knee acted up again as it did in 2002, or he didn’t perform up to expectations, he was barely making a dent in their budget and was playing a position that’s relatively easy to fill, but if he performed, the Red Sox controlled his rights into 2004. Ortiz hit .288/.369/.592 with his new club, as the Red Sox gave him playing time and encouraged him to swing away instead of focusing on contact, and he topped those slash stats in each of the following four years as the Red Sox won two World Series with his help.

It is hard to disagree if you look at Big Papi’s entire tenure with the Red Sox. But for that one season, Ortiz was only worth 3.4 wins. Compare that to Carlos Pena who was worth 6.1 wins in 2007. That year the Rays paid Pena $800K.

But as Law pointed out, it was essentially a two-year deal as Ortiz would not hit six years of service time until after the 2004 season. The Red Sox paid Ortiz $4.59 million in 2004 and he was worth 4.7 wins. For about $5.8 million the Red Sox got 8.1 wins and a key contributor to the 2004 World Series. For $800K, the Rays got 6.1 wins.

Based just on those initial contracts, we still give the edge to the Red Sox and Ortiz. But it’s close.

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• BJ (née Melvin) Upton is now on Twitter. [TheRealBJUpton]
• This is just speculation on his part, but Phil Rogers thinks Fernando Perez could be an option for the Cubs…Even though there is not a need for Perez at the big league level, it would still require a legit prospect to pry him from the Rays. The reason is, Perez still has at least two minor league options and gives the Rays depth and insurance at almost no cost. If needed, they know he can contribute. So unless the Cubs are going to give a very good low-minors prospect or a young, cheap arm that can contribute in the bullpen this season, there is little reason for the Rays to trade Perez. [Chicago Tribune]
• Buster Olney looks at what money some teams have left to spend in free agency and speculates that the Red Sox and Yankees may have already reached their payroll limits or are very close. That could mean that neither team will make any additional significant additions prior to the season such as Jason Bay. [ESPN]
• One name you can scratch off the Rays free agent shopping list is Kelvim Escobar, who signed with the Mets. [Newark Star-Ledger]
• Reid Brignac is playing winter ball in Mexico working on his defense at second base and his pitch selection at the plate. [St. Pete Times]
• Jayson Stark ranked Pat Burrell as the 8th Least Valuable Player of the decade. [ESPN]
• Bill Chastain did a Q&A with Dan Wheeler about Christmas. [MLB]
• David Price spoke to 150 kids at a recent baseball camp and said he was more nervous than he has ever been on a baseball mound. [Cullman Times]
• Joe Maddon recently spoke with the baseball team at Lafayette College where he played baseball and Football in the mid-70s. [Lafayette]

The Red Sox Nation rallying cry is “we have been here before.” You would think Red Sox fans wanted to lose 3 of the first 4 games. Anybody with a pink hat on today will be quick to point to the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees and the 2007 ALCS against the Indians.

Funny how these fans also forget facing elimination in the 2005 ALDS against the White Sox. Down 2 games to none with game 3 at home. The Red Sox lost. And then there was the 2003 ALCS with the Red Sox losing an elimination game against the Yankees. And the 1999 ALCS against the Yankees. In a scenario similar to this year’s ALCS, the Red Sox trailed 3 games to 1 with game 5 in Fenway. The Red Sox lost.

Oh yeah. The Red Sox have been here before.

And this just in…The ’07 Indians aren’t even in the same league as the Rays. Well, you know what we mean.

Bonus pic after the links (Thanks Brian)

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• Scott Kazmir will indeed start game 5. Buster Olney reported this morning that this move was made at least in part because of the tumultuous history between Kazmir and umpire Derryl Cousins, who is scheduled to be the home plate umpire in game 6. [The Heater]
• One writer at Bugs and Cranks says Joe Maddon is waiving the white flag in game 5 by starting Scott Kazmir in place of James Shields…Of course they don’t take into account the history between Kazmir and umpire Derryl Cousins, or Kazmir’s history in Fenway or Shields’ home/road splits or the off-day after game 5. Other than those reasons, then yeah, Papa Joe wants to lose game 5. [Bugs and Cranks]
• David Chalk of Bugs and Cranks says Joe Maddon’s decision is “genius” because he is infallible. [Bugs and Cranks]
• Some are starting to notice that this Rays team is not a flash in the pan. [The Big Lead]
• We think we figured out where Willy Aybar’s home run ball landed. The Citgo sign behind the green monster spontaneously caught fire today. [WMUR]
• Gerry Fraley points out that there is no Curt Schilling to bail out the Red Sox this year. [Sporting News]
• One Pirates fan wishes he was a Rays fan…To which we say: Why aren’t you? Do it. Don’t be afraid. Jump on board. You can keep the Buccos on the side. We don’t mind. The RAYSHEAD Army is growing, and we are welcoming new members with open arms. And we don’t even mind if you think Scott Kazmir’s first name is “Eric”. We can work on the details later. We would have trouble with the first name of any of the Pirates starting pitchers. [Fanhouse]
• 8 reasons why the Red Sox are losing…One thing we haven’t mentioned today: Many are looking at the triple last night as a “coming alive” moment for David Ortiz. Why is nobody mentioning that even though he hit that ball well it still came well short of leaving the park? It seems that the triple just made it even more clear that Big Papi’s swing is not well right now. [RBI Magazine]
• Anthony Rieber thinks the Rays are only good because of a “lot of luck.”…Anthony, research is a writer’s best friend. Try it some time. [Newsday]
• Hidden behind ESPN’s “Insider” wall, Buster Olney breaks down the 4 things the Red Sox need to do in order to come back in this series. Really it is 3 reasons as one is based on Scott Kazmir pitching game 6. [ESPN]
• Really? One writer wonders if the Rays will sell out any potential World Series games. Never mind that the Rays sold out all the ALDS and ALCS games in less than an hour. This is the World Series we are talking about…Our IQ went down having read that post. [yoonewverse]
• The Hardball Times tries to project BJ Upton’s ’09 season based on his ’08 stats, including his postseason performance to date. Of course, they don’t take into account the shoulder injury that Upton battled most of the season. [The Hardball Times]

THE GOOD: The loss of Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria to the DL was relieved a little on Sunday when Rocco Baldelli was activated from the DL and made the start in right field. He played the first 5 innings, before being replaced by Gabe Gross. It was Rocco’s first game since May of ’07 and he drove in a run, going 1-4…The Rays now have a 95.9% chance of making the playoffs. That is a big number folks. At the other end of the spectrum, the Yankees now have a 6.0% chance at a playoff slot. They have dropped 13.7% in the past week. We love a world in which the Rays are in the playoffs and the Yankees are not.

THE BAD: A Monday without “The Hangover”. You can file your complaints at JetBlue.com.

THE TELLING: Willy Aybar will be the starting third baseman tonight and Justin Ruggiano will get the start in left…Sunday’s win, the Rays’ 71st of the season, set the franchise record for wins in a season…The Rays magic number to clinch a playoff berth is 40.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• Carl Crawford, placed on the DL this weekend with an injured finger, had his finger examined by a hand-specialist. The Rays are expected to know more today. There are some concerns that he could be lost for the rest of the season. [MLB]
• Evan Longoria was placed on the DL with a broken wrist after being hit bay a pitch last week. Initial x-rays were negative. A second-opinion revealed the break. He is expected to be out 2-3 weeks. [MLB]
• Scott Kazmir made an adjustment to his mechanics that he hopes will help with his delivery tonight. [St. Pete Times]
• The injuries to Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria certainly pose a challenge for the Rays, but trips to the DL are nothing knew for this squad and Andrew Friedman notes that the Rays did not get where they are this season because of any one player. [Bradenton Herald]
• Martin Fennelly has a column about how tough the loss of Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria is going to be on the Rays…Does anybody else have a tough time reading Fennelly when he writes a column with 25 1-sentence paragraphs? We always get flashbacks to 9th grade English and bad poetry. [Tampa Tribune]
• Last month David Ortiz predicted that the Rays lack of experience would catch up to them. This month he is singing a different tune. [Boston Herald]
• Marc Topkin feels that a decision has already been made for David Price to be promoted to the Rays at some point this season. The question now is only whether he will be a starter or a reliever. Topkin notes that if Price is used as a starter (Price’s preference) it could anger players in the clubhouse if Edwin Jackson or Andy Sonnanstine need to be bumped from the rotation. [St. Pete Times]
• Larry Stone of the Seattle Times compares the ’08 Rays to several other teams that enjoyed sudden success after years of losing. [Seattle Times]
• Chad Bradford finally arrived to the Rays clubhouse in Seattle on Saturday afternoon after a whirlwind few days of cross-country flights. [Tampa Tribune]
• Joe Maddon speaks about altering his approach this season to how he handles his players both behind the scenes and in the public eye. He notes that this year the team is in a position where he can make a difference with a more critical, disciplined approach. [Tampa Tribune]
• A blogger interviews Cliff Floyd. [Eli's MLB Rumors]
• Baseball Digest Daily calls the Rays one of “10 Things To Watch for the Remainder of the 2008 MLB Season.” They are the only team on the list. [Baseball Digest Daily]
• Marc Topkin has some notes about the ’09 schedule (opening day, interleague, etc.). [St. Pete Times]
• Mike Francesa of “Mike and the Mad Dog” in New York City, has been dismissive of the Rays all season, saying that he wouldn’t acknowledge the Rays until August. One blogger wonders why Mike is still not talking about the Rays. [Mike and the Mad Blog]
• Brittany Ghiroli tells how Grant Balfour only stumbled upon baseball as a child in Australia and says his fire and emotion come from his homeland and his father. [MLB]

THE GOOD: The 7th inning. Gary Glover was ginormous in the 7th with a man on second with no outs and Manny Being Manny up in a 4-1 game. There is a very big difference psychologically, between a 3-run lead and a 4-run lead. After working the count full on Ramirez, Glover got Manny to fly out to Gomes in right. He then got Mike Lowell to pop up to Carlos Pena who had to reach over the dugout railing. After an intentional walk, Jason Varitek went down on 3 pitches setting up the bottom of the 7th…In the bottom of the 7th Jason Bartlett did what he needed to do leading off the inning. The biggest reason Bartlett bats 9th is so Joe Maddon has 2 “leadoff” hitters in front off the heart of the lineup. Bartlett hit a double to right and got the rally started. And then in a very risky move, Bartlett stole third after getting a walking jump off second. Akinori Iwamura then beat the pitcher to the bag on a ground ball to first to score the first run of the 7th, and the Rally was on. The first 6 batters of the inning reached base. The big blow was a bases loaded 2-run double by Evan Longoria, of course (is it too early to start MVP chants at the Trop?)…The Top of the 9th saw several close calls. A great running grab by BJ Upton facing the wall in center field. A line drive by Jason Varitek that went just foul and then Dioner Navarro throwing out the tying run trying to steal second base. One of the more bone-headed base running plays we have seen in a while.

THE BAD: The Rays just swept the Boston Red Sox and now lead the AL East by 3.5 games. We repeat the Rays lead the AL East by 3.5 games with the best record in baseball. We dare you to try and come up with something bad.

THE TELLING: The Rays magic number to clinch a spot for the playoffs is 73 (3.5 lead over BOS, who has a 2-game lead in the Wild Card over MIN)

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• Mitch Talbot replaced Troy Percival on the roster when the closer went on the DL but Talbot is not expected to see much, in any playing time as he will be the Rays emergency relief pitcher. [Tampa Tribune]
• Since 1995, only one team had the best record in baseball on July 1 and failed to make the playoffs. That was the ’06 Red Sox. [Sully Baseball]
• Outs Per Swing offers their take on the recent rumors of the Rays interest in Rockies’ closer Brian Fuentes. [Outs Per Swing]
• Outs Per Swing also wonders if Freddy Garcia is a better option for the Rays than CC Sabathia. [Outs Per Swing]
• Earlier this week, we wrote that we thought Dioner Navarro was the Rays first-half MVP…Rays The Stakes counters with JP Howell. Their argument is solid, but we just can’t bring ourselves to give out an MVP honor to a middle reliever. [Rays the Stakes]
• “10 reasons to hate the Red Sox”…We hate the Sox and their Pink Hat nation, but this article is a bit of a stretch as you can tell Tom Jones had a little trouble coming up with 10 reasons. In fact, the various stretches needed to be made actually had us defending the Sox as we read it and that is something we never want to do. [St. Pete Times]
• Newsday comes up with “Top 10 reasons the Rays are for real.” [Newsday]
• David Ortiz says the Yankees are still the team to beat for the AL East title…That is fine by us and should be great news for the Rays players. We much prefer that the Rays keep flying under the radar. [Boston Herald]
• We love all the fans jumping on the Rays bandwagon, but this is one “fan” we are happy not to have. He is a Mets fan looking for a “secondary” team. He bashes the new surge in fans at the Trop and yet he is the one bailing on his team looking for a new team to root for. And of course he fails to realize that 90% of all fans become fans of teams when that team is good. We are willing to bet that this guy is in his mid- to late-20s meaning he was in his formative years when the Mets were the best team in the NL and the best team in NYC. It is Mets “fans” that actually booed Johan Santana on opening day in his first start for the Mets. And it was Mets “fans” that will regularly boo Carlos Delgado early in a game and then give him a standing ovation later in the game when he hits a home run. And then they wonder why he won’t come out for a curtain call. We are so glad to not be in the NL East. Mets fans make Red Sox fans look classy and that is not an easy thing to do. [200 Miles From the Citi]
• It used to be the worst day of his life, but now Scott Kazmir calls his trade from the Mets “a blessing”. [NY Daily News]

THE GOOD: Say what you will about Aki Iwamura, but this guy was born to hit in Fenway Park. His first at bat of the game was a typical Aki flyball to left field, only in Fenway that is a leadoff home run. Aki would hit 50 doubles if he played for the Sox. Let’s hope he doesn’t figure that out after his playing days with the Rays ends…Carlos Pena had 10 home runs at the end of May in ’07. He had 10 home runs after May in ’08. He got his first of June last night on a ball that looked like it was off the end of the bat and yet kept going for a 2-run shot that gave the Rays a 4-3 lead in the 6th…Grant Balfour and Gary Glover who may be battling for a roster spot over the next week-plus, both pitched and pitched well. They combined for 2.2 scoreless innings of relief with 1 hit and 1 walk. Balfour did allow one inherited runner to score on a sac fly.

THE BAD: Matt Garza. It is all about command in the strike zone for Garza and last night he did not have it. Of his 96 pitches, only 55 were strikes. And amazingly he only threw 8 first-pitch strikes to the 26 batters he faced (31%). In his last start in which he struck out 10, he was strike-one to 23 of 30 batters (77%). This is especially important against a patient veteran team like the Sox. They are just going to sit back and wait for Garza to throw a strike, knowing there is a good chance he won’t. Of the 26 batters that Garza faced, only 3 swung at the first pitch, and one of those was JD Drew’s 4th inning home run. They were just begging The Garza Complex to get ahead 0-1 and he couldn’t do it.

THE TELLING: With Carl Crawford on the bench, Papa Joe Maddon had Dioner Navarro batting in the 2-hole, and Eric Hinske in left field.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• This weeks Rays Index Live Blog-A-Baloo will indeed be held tomorrow (Thursday) night. And don’t forget that it is an early 6:05 start time, so be sure to make your beer run early.
• Don’t forget to VOTE for Carl Crawford to start the all-star game. If you haven’t voted yet today, go NOW! [MLB All-Star Voting]
• Carl Crawford was not in the starting lineup as he flew to Birmingham, AL to visit Dr. James Andrews to have an MRI on his sore hamstring. There was no structural damage, and CC flew back and was used as a pinch-hitter later in the game. [MLB]
• With no David Ortiz in the lineup it would be tempting to just walk Manny Ramirez every at bat. But Joe Maddon says he will wait and see how the rest of the Sox lineup is hitting before making any decisions. [Boston Herald]
• Another power ranking has the Rays rated #1. This one is a bit different in that it is statistically driven, which seems like a good way of revealing the teams that have been lucky or unlucky so far this season. [WhatIfSports]
• Some blogger apparently stopped playing World of Warcraft long enough to comment on the Rays having better odds to win the AL East than the Yankees. [Sports Crackle Pop]
• The Rays just started a rather tough stretch of games. [St. Pete Times]
• Saber Scouting is split on whether the Rays will take Buster Posey or Tim Beckham with the first pick tomorrow. [Saber Scouting]

THE GOOD: All 3 AL East Teams in action last night lost. Both the Sox and the Yankees lost last night.

THE BAD:

THE TELLING: Even if the Rays lose 2 of 3 in this series, the Rays would still be in first place in the AL East…David Ortiz went on the DL and will miss this series, and will be out at least a month, meaning he will miss the next Rays-Red Sox series at the end of this month. There are even rumblings that Big Papi’s injury could be season-ending.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• Don’t forget to VOTE for Carl Crawford to start the all-star game. If you haven’t voted yet today, go NOW! [MLB All-Star Voting]
• Is our push to get Carl Crawford voted to the All-Star team working? CC moved up a spot to #12 on the list. Remember he only need finish in the top 3. [Rays Report]
• Looks like this week’s Rays Index Live Blog-A-Baloo will be Thursday night. There is a small chance we will have to move it to Wednesday night. We will make another announcement later on to confirm the day.
• Scott Kazmir was named AL Pitcher of the Month. [Yahoo! Sports]
• just to show how Sox fans are not taking this series seriously, the opening line of this Boston Globe piece: “For now, it ranks more as novelty than high drama, this notion of the Red Sox playing a showdown series in June against the Tampa Bay Rays”. [Boston Globe]
• One blog nominates first base coach George Hendrick for “Most Interesting Man in the World”. They even found a picture of him, which is apparently not an easy thing to do. [The Place To Be]
• Jim Caple of ESPN.com has had enough of “Red Sox Nation” and set out to figure out exactly when the Bandwagon started filling up. It is refreshing to know that the Trop isn’t the only park where the home team’s fans are outnumbered by the green and pink hat wearing newbies. [ESPN]
• Baseball Prospectus does a Q&A with Andy Sonnanstine. It is hidden behind their password wall if you don’t have an account. It is an interesting read in that Sonnanstine still considers himself a pitcher that throws from different arm angles even though we showed you a while back that he is not doing that this year. [Baseball Prospectus]

Red Sox 5, Devil Rays 4.
Was anybody surprised that Big Papi hit that home run?

Just the links today as we are on our way to Austin City Limits.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• With BJ Upton’s shift to center field, the Rays may now be sporting both the strongest right field arm and the strongest arm in center field. [Devil Rays]

Maddon can rest easy knowing that his center fielder owns only one of a pair of outfield cannons. Right fielder Delmon Young entered Wednesday’s action ranked third in the Majors with 16 outfield assists behind Atlanta’s Jeff Francoeur and Minnesota’s Michael Cuddyer. Upton, who has found new life after an uncomfortable tour through three infield positions, can stay right where he is.

• Carter Gaddis calls this stretch of games “The most challenging road trip of the season”. He apparently has already forgotten the trip in which the Rays played a make-up game in Chicago on a Monday and were forced to play three games in three different cities in three days. [TBO]

Tim Wakefield 6, Devil Rays 0.
We got nothin’ today…Enjoy the links while Delmon Young flails and misses yet another Wakefield knuckler by 18 inches. And wake us when Kazmir finally stops throwing pitches in the first inning.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• In addition to being called up to the majors and getting a walk-off hit in his first at bat with the Devil Rays, Joel Guzman was able to meet his childhood idol, Davif Ortiz. [Devil Rays]
• Joe Maddon says not to expect more than a couple of additional players to be called up when teams are allowed to expand the rosters on September 1. Look for Maddon to go to a six-man rotation to ease the pitch counts of Scott Kazmir and James Shields [tampabay.com]

“We don’t need a whole lot of folks up here right now,” Maddon said. “We have a young group that needs to continue to play. We’re playing to win and we’re playing against a lot of contending teams and we set it up to win, so I don’t anticipate a whole bunch of people showing up.”

• We thought for certain that The Ledger would have fixed THIS headline by this morning, but apparently not. Just to clarify, Joel Guzman had 19 at bats with the Dodgers last year. [The Ledger]
• Carlos Pena is the Devil Rays representative on the ballot for the Hank Aaron Award. We have made our thoughts on this award known before and we still think it is a joke. [Devil Rays]
• Another blogger weighs in on how to “fix” the Devil Rays. This time the solution is a new stadium. Simple huh? First of all, if we have said it once, we have said it six times, the Trop is not a bad place to watch a game. It is still being penalized by a reputation that is perpetuated by people that have never seen a game at the Trop. Have these people ever been to Shea Stadium? And we know that Fenway is historic, but it is the most uncomfortable stadium we have ever been to. There is more leg room on a plane and most of the seats do not even face towards the infield. For example, if you sit down the right field line, you are facing the monster. Second, the lease the Devil Rays have with the Trop is well-documented and about as iron-clad as any stadium has with a pro team, so the Rays are not going anywhere anytime soon…even if everybody seems to think they should. [Dahmen Daily]
• The Devil Rays have broken ground on their new Spring Training complex in Charlotte County. [WinkNews.com]