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

THE GOOD: Jeff Niemann. The Giraffe was the hard-luck non-winner going toe-to-toe with one of the best in baseball in Justin Verlander. Niemann allowed just 5 hits in 7+ innings and did not walk a batter…Evan Longoria. Dirtbag has struggled a bit recently, and Joe Maddon rewarded him by dropping him to 6th in the lineup. Longo responded with a 2-run home run…Aki’s Back. He played for the second straight day which is a great sign for his rehabbed knee and he responded with his first home run since last season.

THE BAD: The Overthinker. As great a manager as Joe Maddon is, he is still prone to overthinking and trying too hard to reinvent the game. On Sunday the Rays were leading 3-1. Grant Balfour relieved Jeff Niemann after a leadoff double. He got two easy outs including a 4-pitch strikeout with blazing 96-mph fastballs. Then Joe Maddon does the unthinkable. He orders Balfour to pitch around Curtis Granderson to bring the go-ahead run to the plate. On the list of managerial options at that point in the game, that was about #14, right ahead of “let Don Zimmer pitch to Granderson,” and right behind “punch Grant Balfour in the face.” If JoeMa doesn’t have confidence in Balfour at that point, then he should have gone to a lefty to face Granderson. And if the Tigers pinch-hit, so what. Then maybe you pinch around. Otherwise, go at him. Worst case scenario is a tie-game and the Rays are still in the game…Wet Track. The Tigers and White Sox always seem to be the most active when it comes to making the infield very difficult for the Rays to run on. Yesterday, the Tigers staff had the infield soaked and yet Joe Maddon still tried to run. The Rays were 1-3 in stolen bases.

THE TELLING: Time of Death. That’s it. Call it. Time of Death for the Rays season was 3:35pm on August 30th. The tragic number is down to 28. The Rays are now 5.5 back in the Wild Card with 33 to go and they are not chasing just one team. Maybe the Rays could count on one team going in the tank, but not two. If the Red Sox finish 16-16, the Rays would have to go 22-11 just to tie. About the only slim chance the Rays have is to go 5-1 or 6-0 in remaining game with Sox. Not likely.  Ben Zobrist played right field and batted third…CoolStandings.com now gives the Rays an 8.9% shot at making the playoffs. Baseball Prospectus says it is 12.3%, but their PECOTA version says 4.8%.

SUNBURST PLAYER OF THE GAME: Jeff Niemann.

DEVIL DOGS WEBTOPIA…

• We have a special edition of the Webtopia coming later this morning.
• With the Rays falling off the pace, they are now planning a larger September roster expansion. [St. Pete Times]
• Starting September 1st, the Rays will have a stuffed gorilla available at the Trop with a Rays jersey that says “Zorilla” across the back with the number 18. [Rays Revolutionary]
• John Romano writes something that many fans have been thinking for a long time. That the Rays really miss some of the veterans that were on the roster last year. [St. Pete Times]

Click on above images to be taken to full standings, box scores or schedule…

THE GOOD: After every game (well most games), we take a few moments to celebrate “the good”, to dwell on “the bad” and reflect on what we learned (“the telling”). Once that is done, that game is over and we move on to the next game. Now? There is no next game. There is no “good”. We don’t want to hear about what a great season it was. We don’t want to hear about how the Rays exceeded all expectations. None of that matters today. There are no excuses. There are no silver linings. Maybe in a couple of days we will be able to reflect on what happened in 2008, but not today. Today is about replaying that last pitch in our minds over and over until it is permanently burned into our synapses. We don’t want to forget that moment. For that is the moment that will drive the Rays to be better.

THE BAD: It would have been nice if the Rays had shown up for the World Series and not the Devil Rays. It would have been nice if the Rays got to play in a World Series with decent umpiring*. It would have been nice if the Rays would have been able to play game 3 before their bed time. It would have been nice if the Rays could have played 9 innings in game 5, uninterrupted and without a monsoon. We would have liked to see that series. We don’t know if the Rays would have won, but we would have liked their chances. The Phillies are a good team. They are not this good.

THE OTHER BAD: We don’t have a big problem with Jason Bartlett trying to score with 2 outs in the 7th in a tie game. He probably has a better chance of scoring on the single than waiting for the next batter to get a base hit. We do have a big problem with JP Howell hitting in the 7th with 1 out and a runner on first. Joe Maddon still has 5 pitchers available including David Price and Edwin Jackson both of whom could work more than one inning. (OK, Jackson is a giant turd, but he would have been available in a 12th or 13th inning). And why let Howell hit if Maddon is just going to pull Howell after one hit in the bottom of the 7th?…Speaking of “Why”. Why the hell is BJ Upton swinging at the first pitch in the 8th inning. A first pitch with no outs and a runner on first. A first pitch in the 8th inning down 1 run. A first pitch that was not in Upton’s power zone. A first pitch to a hitter that saw 4.1 pitches per plate appearances this season. Then again, Upton, one of the fastest players in baseball, grounded into 16 double plays this season. Of the 20 players that stole more than 25 bases this season, only Alex Rios (22) grounded into more.

THE TELLING: Clearly the answer is Deadspin. We will now set out to become the Editor of Deadspin prior to the 2010 season. During the last two even-numbered years, the World Series champion was the favorite team of the editor of Deadspin. 2010 World Series Champions: Tampa Bay Rays.

*We have no idea if more calls went for or against the Rays. Obviously the calls against the Rays stand out more to us, but at times it seemed that the umpires were having more of an impact than either team

THE GOOD: Carlos Pena continues his torrid pace, hitting another home run, his 25th and 10th in last 22 games…BJ Upton returned to the lineup and took out his frustrations on the Rangers, hitting a line drive double down the left field line and following later with a home run to right-center. It was only his 2nd HR since the All-Star break. He drove in 3…Winning series. After getting shutout on Saturday by the worst pitching staff in baseball, the Rays bounced back to take the rubber-match. The Rays are now 8-0-1 in series since the All-Star break and have stretched their lead in the East to 5 games in the all-important loss column. Remember, the Rays were a half-game behind the Red Sox at the All-Star break. So, while everybody has been predicting the imminent doom of the Rays, they have actually played 5 games better than the Sox in the last 29 games…Winning on the road. The Rays just finished their longest road trip of the year at 7-3 and are now 11-6 on the road since the All-Star break after finishing the first-half at 19-25 away from the Trop.

THE BAD: Unlike the rest of the league, the Rangers schedule Sunday home games at night, due to the unbearable heat of Texas in the Summer. But ironically, the high yesterday was only 88. But thanks to the scheduling, the Rays likely did not get home until about 5am…The Red Sox are on the road for the next 9 games, but unfortunately, they get the Orioles starting today, while the Rays must take on the best team in the AL.

THE BAT-SHIT CRAZY: Joe Maddon deciding to walk Josh Hamilton with the bases loaded in the 9th inning. It was good because it worked. Dan Wheeler got Marlon Byrd to strike out. It was bad, because it brought the winning run to the plate in the form of a player that had just hit a walk-off grand slam against the Yankees two weeks ago. It was bat-shit crazy, because it was only the second time in 60+ years that a player had been intentionally walked with the bases loaded. Not to mention, for about 0.04 seconds we thought Grant Balfour was going to go kangaroo on Papa Joe when Maddon came out to the mound following the walk.

THE TELLING: Juan Salas looks like he ate Troy Percival…Juan Salas is now the only member of the 2007 opening day bullpen that is still with the organization…BJ Upton was back in the lineup, and batted leadoff with Aki Iwamura getting a day off…Was anybody else worried about the safety of inanimate objects in the clubhouse after Joe Maddon pulled Grant Balfour?…The Rays now have a 96.6% chance of making the playoffs according to Baseball Prospectus, with a 74.0% chance of winning the division…Don’t look now, but the Rays are only 1.5 games behind the Angels for the best record in the AL…The Rays magic number for the playoffs is now 35 with the Red Sox, White Sox and Twins all sharing the same number of losses…

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• We had the honor of writing a “Rest of the Season” preview for the Rays at The Hardball Times…Most of the thoughts have been seen here previously, and it is a bit more long-winded than you guys are used to, but if you ever have a desire to see what Rays Index on amphetamines would look like, head on over. [The Hardball Times]
• So this is what BJ Upton apologists have turned to? They are sitting at home timing Rays batters to first base. We assume they are trying to show that Upton is not the only player that doesn’t hustle. Seriously. We can’t make this shit up. [DRays Bay]
• Troy Percival says his knee is feeling much better and he may not need the arthroscopic surgery originally scheduled. If this is the case, he could be back sooner than previously thought. [MLB]
• Marc Topkin does a nice job of breaking down the Rays and their remaining schedule. [St. Pete Times]
• Rake Blog wonders if the Rays should trade Carl Crawford this off-season, noting that CC may have a perceived value that is much higher than his actual value. [Rake Blog]
• The Rays say that today’s game will be played, but tomorrow’s contest is “in doubt”, due to Tropical Storm Fay. [The Heater]
• Gary Glover has landed a major league job with the Tigers. [Detroit Free-Press]
• The Rays are only the 4th team in MLB history with 5 starters 26 or younger with at least 20 starts. [Bradenton Herald]
• Bill Chuck agrees with us…The Yankees are roadkill. [Fox Sports]

THE GOOD: Ben Zobrist getting the start. Everytime he did something good, we were rewarded with shots of his wife Julianna. That’s it. That was the only redeeming quality of yesterday’s game.

THE BAD: Joe Maddon had some questionable (read: idiotic) pitching changes on Sunday. First he brings Dan Wheeler in to face Ryan Ludwick one day after Ludwick had taken Wheeler deep for a walk-off home run. First pitch on Sunday? Home run. But the really stupid move? After Wheeler walked the lead-off hitter of the 8th inning. A lefty was due up. So Papa Joe brings in Trever Miller. Seems fine with the lefty due up, EXCEPT IT IS A BUNTING SITUATION AND THE NEXT BATTER IS A RIGHTY. Why Miller, who was allowing righties to hit 8-25 (.320) prior to that at bat? Result? You guessed it. A single to left that scores 2. Game tied…More poor fundamentals. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, why on earth did anybody let Evan Longoria go out to the field without sunglasses? Sure enough, he lost a pop-up in the Sun. Eric Hinske was thrown out at second trying to stretch a double. And the pitchers walked 10 batters, 4 in the 8th inning alone. It is a miracle the Cards only scored 5…But the real reason the Rays lost on Sunday? They angered the gods of baseball. The Spring Training jersey in the regular season is idiotic. First of all they are acceptable for practice, but they are ugly and do not look like a major league baseball jersey. The pit-stain coloring is horrendous. The wide white stripe on the side clashes with the piping on the pants. Not to mention the color of the jersey is not the same as the cap. We’d expect that from an AAU team. Not from a major league baseball club. For all that is holy, please never do that again.

THE TELLING: Jason Bartlett was out of the lineup with an illness. This was siginificant as the very first batter for the Cards hit a ground ball in the hole, that Zobrist got to, but threw late to first. We have seen Bartlett make that play two dozen times this season…The Rays batters only went down 1-2-3 in 2 innings during the entire 3-game series. Both of those innings came on Sunday. While the Sox now have a 1-game lead in the East, the Rays and Sox are still tied in the all-important loss column…The Rays have a 1.5 game lead in the Wild Card standings over the O’s and the A’s.

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]
• We will have the Rays Index Live Blog-A-Baloo on Wednesday afternoon for game 3 of the Oakland series. The Live Blog-A-Baloo will be held right here.
• A “24-hour bug” has hit the Rays clubhouse recently, but Jason Bartlett was the first player to get sick, and had to sit out yesterday’s game. [MLB]
• Big League Stew called the Rays-Cardinals series the “best of ’08 interleague debut”, noting that the series “actually oozed playoff intensity at times” although we have to take exception to the suggestion that the Rays have a “fundamentally sound approach”. Clearly they did not see Saturday’s game with all of the baserunning mistakes or the 10 walks on Sunday. “Fundamentals” cost the Rays a sweep. [Big League Stew]
• Rays of Light called yesterday’s games the first “Maddon-loss” of the season…They are too kind. [Rays of Light]
• Jonny Gomes has only started 1 of the last 8 games, but should get 2 starts in the A’s series as they are scheduled to throw 2 lefties in the series. [Tampa Tribune]
• Is Jonny Gomes shilling for Kevin Costner? Some (very) circumstantial eveidence suggests that Oliver Stone needs to be called. [Bugs & Cranks]
• Yesterday, DRG linked to a story about Gary Shelton suggesting that the Rays roster is better than the Yankees roster. Today we have Bugs & Cranks offering a rebuttal. [Bugs & Cranks]
• The same Bugs & Cranks writer (not David Chalk) thinks that the Rays “followed the lead of the perennially low-budget Florida Marlins by ponying up the money to sign one of their key stars, pitcher Scott Kazmir, to a four-year contract worth $28.5 million”…The Kazmir-deal is only the latest of a several long-term deals that the Rays have given to young players. Evan Longoria, James Shields and Carlos Pena have already been locked up long-term in the past few months. If anything, the Marlins are following the Rays and even then, they have a ways to go as one deal hardly compares to four. [Bugs & Cranks]
• Akinori Iwamura has cut-down on the flyball outs and it has helped to the tune of 26 hits in the last 15 games. [MLB]

In an ESPN.com story about the Tampa Bay Rays’ bullpen, there was a telling quote from Joe Maddon about his own managerial style.

“My role has shifted,” Maddon said, “from being the eternal optimist to being the more pragmatic one. And I recognized both goals in advance. When I first came here, I knew it was going to be necessary to prop things up, and now I know it’s going to be necessary to somehow curb the enthusiasm.”

So, annoying the fans to no end was all part of Papa Joe’s master plan. And now that the team is doing well, it is now OK to be a curmudgeon. Now if we could get Maddon to actually tighten the leash on players as opposed to just promising.

Then again, this may explain why Papa Joe’s Chernoff face was frowning. Or maybe he is just worried that the Rays are playing above his goals.

Improved bullpen big reason Rays have high hopes [ESPN]

Marc Topkin of the St. Pete Times recently wrote a piece entitled “Maddon shortens his leash” discussing how Joe Maddon would hold players more accountable in 2008.

Accountability is already manager Joe Maddon’s favorite word of the spring…And it’s going to become more prevalent, and more apparent, Maddon says, in how he manages the team in his third season.

“We’re at the point now where we think we’ve moved this along a bit, so you’re not going to give somebody as much rope. You still want to develop, and you still want to see people. But they may not get the same opportunities to fail as much as we’ve given people to fail in the past.”

That sounded nice. But it also sounded familiar. Where had we heard this before? Hmmm?

Oh yeah! Maddon said the same thing in Spring Training last year...

When Maddon admitted the other day that some of his players were unprofessional at times last year, it rekindled concerns that he might be too much of a players’ buddy to be a taskmaster.

“I probably made a mistake in regard to giving the younger players too much leeway early on. When you are dealing with young players, it is probably wiser to use a tighter rein with them. I want to treat them like men, but I want to make sure they’re ready for it.”

So what happens this year if the unprofessionalism continues? What happens if players continue ask questions that were covered in a meeting a few minutes earlier?

“That won’t happen this year,” Maddon said. “If it does, I’ll deal with it.”

Maddon in February, 2007: “it is probably wiser to use a tighter rein”
Maddon in February, 2008: “so you’re not going to give somebody as much rope”

So is Maddon saying he did not “tighten the reins” in 2007? Or did he not tighten them enough?

If he keeps this up, there won’t be much rope left in 2009.

Maddon shortens his leash [St. Pete Times]
Is Maddon the man? Maybe [St. Pete Times]

Tampa Bay Rays (24 days until pitchers and catchers report)
DRays Bay looks at the history of Japanese position players that have made the switch to Major League Baseball and their improvement (or lack thereof) from year one to year two. History does not bode well for Akinori Iwamura as only Hideki Matsui improved significantly and the other five players on the list showed a decline in OPS in their second year. This does not worry us at all. Of the players on the list, only Matsui had to significantly alter his approach at the plate when he came to the US.

When he came to the Yankees, Matsui hit only 16 home runs in his first season, despite hitting 40 home runs in three of his 11 seasons in Japan. In year two, Matsui made adjustments to the pitchers, the bigger parks and improved his home run total to 31. More impressive was that even though he was starting to hit more home runs, he recognized that he was never going to be the same home run hitter in the US as he was in Japan and transformed himself into a doubles machine. In 11 seasons in Japan, Matsui only exceeded 30 doubles on three occasions with a career-high of 34. Matsui exceeded those totals in his first three seasons with the Yankees with season totals of 42, 34 and 45 doubles.

Of the other five players on that list, only Kazuo Matsui ever hit as much as 30 home runs in one season in Japan. None of those players had to make the adjustment from power-hitter, to good all-around hitter.

In his two seasons prior to coming to the Devil Rays, Iwamura had home run totals of 44 and 32 (in 2003 Iwamura hit 12 home runs in 60 games, which projects to 30 over the course of a full season). Nobody expected Iwamura to come in and hit 35 home runs for the Rays. In fact, Iwamura predicted 20 home runs. When the season was over, his home run total was 7, a fry cry from his Japan League totals and his own prediction. However, the drop-off in power mimicked that of Matsui in 2003.

We are not expecting Iwamura to rebound and hit 30 home runs in 2008, but it would not surprise us if his power numbers see a significant boost in season two. By the end of the season we expect to see that Iwamura’s home run total is on par with his prediction entering last season (20) and we also expect to see a significant bump in doubles (21 in 2007). If that occurs, Iwamura will not only improve his OPS in year two, he will establish himself as one of the top-hitting second basemen in baseball.

Aki to battle recent history [DRays Bay]

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• Considerable debate was raised over our criticism of Joe Maddon’s “goal” of 81 wins. While we ackowledge he wants more than 81 wins, we felt it was poorly worded and it is the wording that the fans and the players will gravitate towards. In Marc Topkin’s most recent piece, Stuart Sternberg did a much better job of conveying the team’s perception of what is accepted of the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays. “The goal is to get the organization to a place where we feel coming in we should win 80-something games, and if things break right you win 8-10 more and if things break badly you win 10 less,” he said. “We’re pretty much there. Being in a position to win 65 with the chance to win 75 is not acceptable.” In Sterberg’s words, this is an 80-win team with a chance to be a 90-win team if things break right for the Rays. This was our point from the beginning. Papa Joe made it sound like the Rays are a 75-win team and we should all be happy if they won 81 games. Sternberg’s and our position is that this incarnation of the Rays should win 80 games, and anything less would be a disappointment. [TampaBay.com]
• Further down in the same piece, Topkin reports that the Rays are in talks with left-handed reliever Trever Miller, but that length of contract remains a sticking point. [TampaBay.com]
• MLB Trade Rumors takes on the Tampa Bay Rays in their latest installment of “Needs and Luxuries”. With the piece, MLBTR addresses this season’s lineup and looks ahead to 2009 and some of the changes the Rays could have in store when they make a serious push for the playoffs. [MLB Trade Rumors]
• Baseball America takes a look at the 2008 draft and upon further review…yep…The Devil Rays did suck last year more than any other team (again) and will have the top pick on the draft. Jim Callis speculates that the Rays could take high school shortstop Tim Beckham, over college third baseman Pedro Alvarez. [Baseball America]

The Rays have a lot of quality pitching coming through their pipeline, but teams always want more and they could opt for one of the top college arms, Missouri righthander Aaron Crow or San Diego lefty Brian Matusz. Tampa Bay has gone with pitchers with three of its last four top picks, so my gut feel is they’ll be more inclined to go for a bat. It says here they’ll opt for Georgia high school shortstop Tim Beckham over Vanderbilt third baseman Pedro Alvarez because Beckham plays a more premium position. I still think Alvarez is going to become a first baseman or left fielder by the time he reaches the majors

Last week we unveiled our Meta-Analysis of the Rays top prospects. Nowhere to be found on the list is the prospect pictured above, Greg Dupas (the one standing). Dupas was an undrafted free agent signing by the Rays in 2003. After missing all of 2004, Dupas rebounded in 2006 with 25 saves and a 1.93 ERA for the SW Michigan Devil Rays. He was unable to maintain the momentum last year with Vero Beach recording only 6 saves and a 5.33 ERA.

While his baseball numbers may not warrant inclusion on our list of the Rays top prospects, maybe we should have considered his cooking skills.

When Greg, 23, isn’t throwing from March, when spring training starts, through September, he’s home in Riverside, and he’s cooking at his parents’ home and that of his girlfriend, Lindsay Ridgeway.

“Greg is such a wonderful cook,” Lee (Girlfriend’s mom) said. “What’s so remarkable about him is his enthusiasm for cooking, and he’s so young. … I think he’s a remarkable young man. He could almost start a whole new career if he had to.”

“I actually like creating my own meals, just experimenting with stuff,” Greg said.

“That’s the main joy I get from cooking, just coming up with something new that everybody likes.”

The “cooking profile” of Dupas also includes one of his recipes and a short bio which includes his “worst kitchen disaster”.

I was determined to learn how to flip omelets in the pan without any utensils. After ruining one, I decided to keep trying and ended up going through the two dozen eggs my mom had stocked the refrigerator with, while stuffing all the eggshells down the garbage disposal. The garbage disposal was almost ruined, and there were no eggs left for the rest of the week

Ahhh. Kinda like how Joe Maddon was determined to figure out how to use Shawn Camp and he kept sending him out to the mound in crucial situations. In the end, the Rays’ allowed most of their inherited runners to score and the season was ruined.

Dupas will fit right in.

A Meta-Analysis Of Top Rays Prospects [Rays Index]
Relief pitcher is good in the kitchen, too [The Press-Enterprise]

The RI Confidence Graph will appear every Monday and is a look at how much confidence we have in the Tampa Bay Rays at this moment. The graph is designed to give us a look at how our emotional bias as Rays fans fluctuates through time. The “confidence” in the team is an inexact measure of how we feel about the team’s current strength as well as how much confidence we have in the Tampa Bay Rays in the near-future. You can think of a “confidence” rating of 10 as an indication that we believe the team is “playoff-caliber”. A rating of 0 is a strong indication that we need to start reevaluating the process that led to us becoming Rays fans…

We love Joe Maddon. We really do (Actually, not all of us love Papa Joe. DRG hates Maddon and and threatens to punch me in the face every time I write something that even remotely supports him). Even though we love Papa Joe, we admit that we can be hard on him from time to time and THIS is the number one reason…

At least 81 (wins), from what manager Joe Maddon envisions. “I think it’s a reasonable goal,” Maddon said.

Actually Joe. It is not a “reasonable goal”. It is not a reasonable goal when you have three stud starting pitchers, a solid 8th and 9th inning duo and at least five players in the everyday lineup with all-star potential.

You wanna know what a “reasonable goal” is? THE F#@%ING PLAYOFFS! That is a reasonable goal. Will it happen? Maybe not. But that should be your god damned “reasonable goal”.

81-81 should be the bare minimum with this collection of talent. I don’t give a rats-ass how young they are. This team has talent. The core of the team are VETERANS. They may not all be old, but Kazmir, Shields, Crawford, Pena, Iwamura, Floyd, Navi, Reyes, Wheeler and Percy have all been through the fire. It is time to start performing or get the hell out of the way for somebody that will.

And that goes for you too Joe. I know you are still learning as a manager and you are not the sort to EVER put pressure on your players in public, but if you can’t win 81 games with this group, I will gladly drive you back to Anaheim myself.

2006? Sure why not. 2007? Got a little stale, but we understood. 2008? No. Stop. Just stop. Stop low-balling the players and the fans. Stop being afraid to bruise their fragile little egos, and tell us that the goal for 2008 is the playoffs. We won’t hold it against you or them if you don’t make it. But we will hold it against them and especially you if you don’t win 81 games.

This is not what we needed heading into the weekend. If anybody needs us, we will be the drunkards trying out how to hack firejoemaddon.com, and making a game plan for starting FirePapaJoe.com.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• I think I had a couple of afternoon links for you, but I am too frustrated. It’s gotta be 5 ‘o clock somewhere…