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: Wade Davis. You worry about a pitcher being rusty in their first start off the DL, especially if there was no rehab stint. Davis looked well-rested, hitting 95 with his fastball (92.4 mph avg). But as expected, he struggled with the touch on his breaking pitches, throwing only 9 of 19 for strikes and not getting any swinging strikes. Still, working into the 6th inning and giving up only 2 runs is a solid effort…Matt Joyce. He singled during the Rays 4-run rally in the second and his home run in the 6th may have been the final nail. It was just his 2nd home run in August after hitting 5 in July…Evan Longoria. As good as we have ever seen Dirtbag. Three more hits last night, including his 41st double and 19th home run. He now has 10 extra-base hits in the last 8 games, including 4 home runs. A lot of guys would be happy just to get 10 hits.

THE BAD: Something To Prove. Joe Maddon was ejected for the 15th time in his career. It was his 6th in 37 career games against his former team, the Angels. In other words, he is ejected once every 6 games versus LA, and once every 82 games (9 ejections in 736 games) against everybody else. That is not a random deviation.

THE TELLING: Dale Thayer was sent back to Durham to make room for Jeff Niemann who will start this afternoon…Joe Maddon’s ejection tied him with Larry Rothschild for the most ever by a (Devil) Rays manager (15)…According to CoolStandings.com, the Rays have a 95.3% chance of making the playoffs. That is greater than the Yankees (93.3%). The Red Sox are at 9.8%…If the Rays play .500 in their last 36, they will finish 96-66. The Red Sox would have to go 24-12 just to tie.

WHERE THEY STAND: The Rays are 78-48, tied with the Yankees for first in the East, and 6 games ahead of the Red Sox in the Wild Card. After 126 games in 2008, the Rays were 77-49.

THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…

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