Archive for the 'Ruddy Lugo' Category

Apr 24

[THE HANGOVER] Rays Likely Without Wheeler And Percival Tonight

Dan Johnson, Dan Wheeler, Joe Maddon, JP Howell, Ruddy Lugo, Shawn Riggans, Troy Percival, Wade Davis Cork Gaines 4 Comments »


THE GOOD: With McScrappy on third base and two outs in the first, Jason Hammel got Vernon Wells to strike out to end the inning and avoid early trouble…Lots ‘o goodies in Rays Rally in 6th inning with the Rays down 3-0. Opposite field lead-off double by Dioner Navarro, followed by another slap-hit to the right side by Jason Bartlett with Navi on second base. Carl Crawford had an RBI single one out later. BJ Upton walks on 4 pitches to load the bases. After a Carlos Pena strikeout, Evan Longoria goes opposite field with a great swing to tie game at 3. Pitch was in on his hands. Dirtbag kept his hands in and ahead of the barrel of the bat. Not easy. Eric Hinske followed with a one-handed wrister and just flipped the ball into right field for a 4-3 lead…Nice 5-4-3 to end the 7th with a great scoop by Carlos Pena…The bullpen was fantastic once again. 2 scoreless innings from Dan Wheeler and 3 scoreless overall…We guess we should file under “good” keeping Roy Halladay in the game in the 8th inning, down 4-3. He only had 96 pitches entering the inning, but had thrown 34 in the 6th inning alone. A Carl Crawford triple followed by a BJ Upton sac fly and the Rays had a huge bonus run to make it 5-3.

THE BAD: Jason Hammel versus Roy Halladay. Turned out OK last night, but that does not mean we will be too excited to see the same matchup in the future…Asshole Jays’ TV announcer: “Jason Hammel has worked 20 innings this year and allowed only 1 home run.” About 0.4 seconds later a ball off the bat of Matt Stairs is flying over the right field wall. In the bottom half of the same inning: “Well [Evan] Longoria has some pop in his bat. He showed it last night.” About 0.2 seconds later Dirtbag grounds into a 5-4-3 double play…Jason Hammel walked 2 batters in the second with only one out. He got out of it…Joe Inglett stole second and third in 5th. Counts against Dioner Navarro in the stat sheet, but that is all Jason Hammel’s fault. Anytime a runner steals third, it is almost always on the pitcher…Joe Maddon got lucky in the 8th inning. We wondered if maybe Trever Miller would get the 8th inning with Dan Wheeler coming on in the 7th inning. Seemed smart with Matt Stairs due up in 8th and already with 2 home runs. Instead, Papa Joe stuck with Wheeler in the 8th inning and Stairs just missed a home run to the opposite field that would have tied the game…The Jays broadcast network runs these idiotic 10 second commercials smack dad in the middle of innings. So fucking annoying. Your first reaction is, “What the hell happened? That was only the first out!” We cannot emphasize enough how annoying this is. It completely interrupts the flow of the game for the viewer.

THE TELLING: Dan Wheeler worked 2 innings last night and is probably not available to work tonight…Troy Percival might not be available either. He has worked the last two nights and his fastball was clearly not sharp last night touching only 88 on the gun after hitting 92-94 the night before. Joe Maddon may have to be careful how often he uses Percy on back-to-back nights in the future. We have no idea who Maddon would use in the 9th inning tonight. Trever Miller? Maybe Papa Joe is counting on another complete game from Andy Sonnanstine...Joe Maddon got caught with his pants down in the 7th inning. Not anticipating the Rays to take the lead in the bottom of the 6th, Dan Wheeler was not ready to go at the start of the 7th. Jason Hammel had to go out to the mound and pretend to be staying in the game while Wheeler got in a few more warmup pitches…Carlos Pena was back at first base…Only two teams in baseball are batting better than .300 with runners in scoring position and two outs, the Los Angeles Angels and the Tampa Bay Rays…Noticed on Carl Crawford’s triple that he is running the bases batter this year. Crawford has mentioned in previous seasons that he hates “rounding” bases. He prefers to run straight to a base and make very sharp turns. He always felt that rounding bases was a waste of steps. Last night, CC took rounded approaches at first and second base. Looks like Dave Martinez finally got into CC’s head when others could not…The Rays are now in 4th place and have won 2 in a row for the third time this season. They are yet to win 3 in a row.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

  • Wow. We predicted that Dan Johnson’s stay in a Rays uniform would be short, but we didn’t think it would be this short. To make room for the newly acquired Gabe Gross, the Rays DFA’d Johnson. To recap: Johnson’s career with the Rays included one game, zero plate appearances. [The Heater]
  • Joe Maddon has finally come to the realization that back-to-back-to-back lefties in the lineup is not necessarily a good thing and has recently altered the lineup accordingly. [MLB]
  • Sorry, this one missed the “Down on the Farm” feature, but for our Y-Chromosome deficient readers, you might be happy to know that Wade Davis has made the list of hottest prospects at Ladies… [Ladies...]
  • Rays Digest wonders if the Rays are stretching too far by reaching out to potential fans in Orlando. Their biggest piece of evidence is the empty seats from Tuesday night’s game…It should be noted that the Rays were going head-to-head with an Orlando Magic playoff game. It is difficult to gauge exactly how much the impact is, but they probably should have waited to see how attendance was in game 2, which was up about 700 over game 1. While there were still empty seats last night, this is a town that is mad for the Magic right now. [Rays Digest]
  • No surprise here…there appears to be a disagreement over how much parking would be available for Rays games at the proposed waterfront stadium. The Rays say plenty. The city of St. Pete says “don’t count your parking spaces before they hatch” or something like that. [St. Pete Times]
  • Apparently a Canadian likes to stereotype people from Orlando and calls the Rays stupid for trying to expand their fanbase. [The Heater]
  • Shawn Riggans and JP Howell read to some Orlando-area school kids. A truly noble effort, but let’s hope it went better than the Shawn Camp-Ruddy Lugo incident last year. [MLB]
Jan 31

[THE HANGOVER] An In Depth Look At James The Greater

Brian Stokes, Evan Longoria, James Shields, Pedro Feliz, Power Rankings, Ruddy Lugo, Wes Helms, Willy Aybar Cork Gaines 2 Comments »

Tampa Bay Rays (14 days until pitchers and catchers report)
Baseball Prospectus profiles James Shields. Take five minutes to read this and you will know more about James the Greater than you thought possible.

Two things stood out to us: 1) Shields scouting report from Baseball America’s list of the Rays’ top 30 prospects of 2002 (Shields was #27). This was after his first professional season as a 16th round draft pick. He would not show up on the list again until 2006.

Shields has good command of his fastball, which was clocked as high as 91 mph last summer. He also has a plus curveball that features sharp, late-breaking action, making it particularly troublesome for right-handers. Shields has impressive determination and excellent endurance…His changeup is no better than average, but the Rays believe that once he makes it more consistent, he could move rapidly. Shields made the most of his opportunities last year.

As pointed out in the piece, Shields’ change-up has come a long ways in seven years, as it was almost an after-thought early in his career. The profile continues to evaluate each of his minor league seasons and concludes by looking at how Shields used each of his four pitches in 2007, which is an excellent look at how a pitcher can attack righties and lefties differently.

As is typical of most right-handed pitchers, he uses his traditional breaking pitches much more frequently against righties by utilizing his slider (19 percent) and his curve (12 percent) at the expense of his changeup (26 percent). He’ll start off most right-handers with either a fastball (55 percent) or a slider (27 percent) and then if he gets ahead, he does a good job of mixing up his pitches. If he falls behind it’ll primarily be fastballs until he evens the count and can begin to work in the other pitches again.

His changeup has more tailing than downward action, moving over 8.5 inches on average (relative to a reference pitch thrown without spin) and he threw it over 43 percent of the time against lefties and a quarter of the time against righties. Although he doesn’t get a lot of called strikes on it, it is where he gets 60 percent of his swinging strikes and a fair percentage of his foul balls. As his out pitch, against right-handers he’ll pull it out a majority (60 percent) of the time on 0-2, 1-2, and 2-2 counts.

If you’re a left-handed hitter, 90 percnt of the pitches you’ll see from Shields are the riding fastball or changeup. He’ll usually start lefties with the fastball (64 percent) but employ the changeup 60 percent of the time when he’s ahead or even in the count. One would think having to choose from just two pitches would make things easier on the hitters but that proves difficult, as lefties hit worse (.243/.278/.393) on the season than right-handers (.250/.289/.428) because of his ability to changes speeds and locate both pitches very effectively. The other two pitches are just for show, as over 50% of the few sliders and curves he threw to lefties ended up in the dirt for balls.

The profile concludes by stating that Shields should not see a let-down in 2008 and will likely be better with an improved defense behind him.

Player Profile: James Shields [Baseball Prospectus]

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

  • The Philadelphia Daily News speculates that the Rays may be one of five teams interested in acquiring third baseman Wes Helms. The signing of Pedro Feliz by the Phillies makes Helms expendable. Still, there is little chance the Rays would be involved after the recent trade that brought in Willy Aybar. And the Daily-News’ assertion that the Rays front office is considering keeping Evan Longoria in the minors for the entire 2008 campaign is dubious at best. [Philadelphia Daily News]
  • Armchair GM has the first power rankings of 2008 out. The Rays come in at a somewhat respectable #22, eight spots ahead of the Baltimore Orioles. There is a lot of hope this year for the Rays, and third base is strong possibility. But if the Rays do not finish ahead of the O’s in the AL East, heads will roll. [Armchair GM]
  • It has been well-documented that the 2007 Tampa Bay Devil Rays had one of the worst bullpens in the history of baseball. Now 28.5% of the Rays 2007 opening day bullpen will be backing up newly acquired Johan Santana for the Mets in 2008. After acquiring Brian Stokes earlier this off-season from the Rays, the Mets have now claimed Ruddy Lugo off of waivers from Oakland. This is typical Mets. They distract their fans with shiny objects and hope they don’t notice that the front office just plugged one hole with a diamond, and yet there are still several other holes. This team is destined to be just good enough to break the fans’ collective hearts…again. [MetsBlog]
  • The St. Pete Chamber of Commerce will form a 35-member task force to investigate the impact of the Tampa Bay Rays proposed stadium. The task for will be made up of local business and community leaders. The task force will help decide if the Chamber of Commerce will ultimately support or oppose the new stadium. [St. Pete Times]
  • Bill Chastain continues his preview series of each of the Rays “positions”. The latest installment is “starting rotation”. [DevilRays.com]
  • 365 Days of Dough, Rays and Me also takes a stab at the Rays 2008 starting rotation. [365 Days of Dough, Rays and Me]
  • DRays Bay interviews Marc Normandin. [DRays Bay]
  • The Diamond Cutter takes a look at the Rays top 5 prospects. [The Diamond Cutter]
May 22

[THE HANGOVER] We Knew The Bullpen Was Bad, But Geez

Andrew Friedman, Brian Stokes, Bullpen still sucks, Casey Fossum, Gary Glover, Jae Seo, Josh Paul, Ruddy Lugo, Shawn Riggans Cork Gaines 4 Comments »
Something smells…Let’s see if we can figure out what it is…

Yesterday, somebody in the comments section asked about the number of runners inherited that Shawn Camp had allowed to score this year. Of course, we really don’t need a statistics to tell us that the answer is somewhere between “too many” and “seriously? Shawn Camp?…again?”

While most media outlets still list wins, losses, saves and ERA, a true measure of a relief pitchers effectiveness is their ability to come in and put out a fire. Strangely, IR (number of inherited runners) IRS (number of inherited runners scored) and IRS% (percentage of inherited runners that scored) are elusive numbers. None of the giant online media outlets list the numbers. But never fear, after some searching, the fine folks over at Baseball Prospectus have come through (as usual).

First let us take a look at the numbers for every pitcher that has pitched in relief this season for the Devil Rays. In all Major League games this season, relief pitchers have faced a total of 1906 IR. Of those runners, 589 have come around to score for a ML average of 30.9%.

PITCHER IR IRS IRS%
Shawn Camp 29 13 44.8%
Gary Glover 16 3 18.8
Brian Stokes 15 6 40.0
Ruddy Lugo 10 7 70.0
Juan Salas 9 3 33.3
Al Reyes 4 1 25.0
Tim Corcoran 2 1 50.0
Chad Orvella 2 0 0.0
Jae Kuk Ryu 0 0 0.0

Jae Kuk Ryu is the only pitcher that is yet to enter a game with a runner on base. As we can see from the numbers, Shawn Camp, as well as Brian Stokes and Ruddy Lugo (currently in AAA) have been atrocious. Gary Glover has been surprisingly effective.

Now let’s see how the Devil Rays rank as a team against the rest of Major League relief pitchers…

TEAM IR IRS IRS%
Colorado 56 25 44.6%
St. Louis 47 19 40.4
TAMPA BAY DEVIL RAYS 87 34 39.1
New York Yankees 83 32 38.6
Baltimore 81 31 38.3
Kansas City 78 29 37.2

As a team the Devil Rays have allowed 34 of 87 IR (both Major League highs) to score or 39.1%. Sadly, the Rockies, as a team, have been nearly as bad as Shawn Camp, but they have faced 31 fewer IR than the Rays. The Yankees and Orioles actually have similar numbers to the Rays.

There have been 27 pitchers that have inherited at least 15 runners in 2007…

PITCHER IR IRS IRS%
Shawn Camp 29 13 44.8%
Geoff Geary 28 5 17.9
Brian Shouse 25 2 8.0
Aaron Fultz 20 7 35.0
John Parrish 20 6 30.0
Micah Bowie 20 6 30.0
Joseph Smith 19 6 31.6
Mike MacDougal 19 5 26.3
Jack Taschner 19 5 26.3

Shawn Camp has inherited more base runners than any other pitcher, with 29 and has allowed the most to score by a wide margin. His IRS% (44.8%) is the 3rd worst among pitchers with at least 15 IR. If Camp only allowed the league average, he would have only allowed 9 IRS, so Camp has allowed 4 more inherited runners to score than an average pitcher would have if placed in the same situations. Ruddy Lugo is tied for the 7th most IRS with 7 and Brian Stokes is tied for 10th with 6. On a brighter note, Glover has the 5th best IRS% of pitchers with at least 15 IR (18.8%).

Of the 74 pitchers that have faced at least 10 IR, Lugo is the league leader with 70% of those runners scoring.

We’re no brain surgeons here, but maybe Camp and Stokes shouldn’t be entering close games with runners on base. Just a hunch.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

  • Andrew Friedman recently spent 5 days in Durham watching each of the Rays 5 AAA starting pitchers. It appears as though we are getting closer to seeing some changes in the Devil Rays rotation. In the meantime our Jae Seo and Casey Fossum voodoo dolls are taking a beating.

Each pitcher from the group – left-hander J.P. Howell and right-handers Andy Sonnanstine, Jason Hammel, Jeff Niemann and Mitch Talbot – is working on a few specific areas of interest. Friedman wouldn’t handicap who might get the first call to Tampa Bay, but said he could see a couple being ready “very soon” while others have some work to do.

  • The Rays have a catching problem. Josh Paul, who was hit by a pitch spiked on a play at home plate on Sunday, needs to head to the DL. The problem is, his replacement, Shawn Riggans is on the DL at AAA Durham and not eligible to come off until Thursday. The Rays do not have any other catchers on the 40-man roster, so if they wanted to replace Paul with somebody else, they would need to designate somebody for assignment. Instead the Rays will keep Paul active as the emergency backup catcher and hope they don’t play any 16 inning games in the Mariners series.
  • The Mariners come to the Trop for a 3-game set beginning tonight. Seattle is 19-21, 5.5 games behind the Angels in the AL West. They are coming off a loss to Cleveland that was a makeup game from earlier this season. They have lost 5 of 6. The Rays were 3-6 against the Mariners in 2006.
May 07

The Hangover: Finally, A Reliever Loses His Job

Al Reyes, BJ Upton, Edwin Jackson, Joe Maddon, Ruddy Lugo, Scott Kazmir Cork Gaines No Comments »


A’s 5, Devil Rays 3.
After winning three of the previous four series, the Rays came back to earth a little by dropping the rubber match with the A’s. The good news is, that despite throwing both Casey Fossum and Edwin Jackson in the series, the Rays only allowed 12 runs in the three games combined. That marks the fewest number of runs allowed by the Rays in a 3-4 game series this year. In fact the on two different occasions the Rays have allowed 12 runs in a single game. In fact the bullpen was above par for the first time this season, with only 5 runs in 11.2 innings and have only allowed 2 runs in the last 9 innings of work.

The Rays have the day off today before beginning a a very important stretch of 6 games on the road and in the division. On Tuesday, the Rays will begin a 3 game set in Baltimore before heading to Toronto for 3 more. Both teams are reeling right now and if the Rays want to make a serious run at The Charlie Hough Line, they win games against the two teams that the Rays have a legitimate shot of finishing ahead of in the division. Three wins this week would be nice. Four would make us down right giddy.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

Apr 10

Time To Get The Durham Shuttle Warmed Up

Andrew Friedman, Bullpen still sucks, Chad Orvella, Joe Maddon, Ruddy Lugo, Scott Dohmann, Steve Andrade, Tim Corcoran Cork Gaines No Comments »


Let’s face it, Shawn Camp and Ruddy Lugo are not major league pitchers right now. In spring training Joe Maddon made it clear that there were no more free lunches. No more “scholarships”. This is why we were puzzled when Papa Joe appeared to guarantee Camp and Lugo spots in the bullpen at the beginning of the spring, despite being two members of the worst bullpen in baseball in 2006. Camp said during the spring that he was working on being more consistent. Mission accomplished. He has been consistently bad in 2007. In four appearances, he has recorded only 7 outs, yet he has surrendered 6 hits, a walk, and a hit batter, to go with 4 runs.

Last night Camp relieved Edwin Jackson with 2 outs in the 6th with runners at first and third and the score tied. Two batters later the Rangers were leading 4-2. Papa Joe had seen enough. Now it was Lugo’s turn to stop the bleeding. Four batters and zero outs later, the game was 8-2 and out of reach. Lugo has actually been worse than Camp so far in 2007. He has recorded 6 outs, and he has given up 7 hits and 4 walks which have led to 5 runs. That equates to an era of 22.50 and a 5.500 whip. That’s not an easy thing to do.

So now we will see if Maddon and Andrew Friedman are true to their word. Are Camp and Lugo on “scholarship”? If not, they need to be in Durham. We have no idea what the problem is, but it is clear that neither is capable of getting major league hitters out at this point. If this continues, it will be damaging to this young team. This team started the season with a lot of confidence. To compete with the monsters of the AL East, this team needs confidence and there is no way they can be confident in the bullpen right now. The idea of Camp or Lugo even warming up in the bullpen during a game in which the lead is less 10 gives us the hibidy-jibidies.

We don’t know who should be in their place, but right now a Fungo could get more hitters out. At Durham, Steve Andrade has 7 strike outs in 4.1 innings, but gave up 2 runs in his first appearance. Tim Corcoran and Scott Dohmann both have major league experience and have been solid so far. Chad Orvella has struggled a bit early on, but was strong this spring with the Rays. Hell, we would rather have Seth McCl…ummm, nevermind. We aren’t that desperate yet.

Is it any coincidence that these are the two pitchers that were used during the now famous “Cat in the Hat” reading? Durham parents are checking the transaction page daily. Soon they will have to lock their children in the basement.

The good and, well, just the ugly [St. Pete Times]

Mar 12

The Hangover: Casey Fossum Makes First Start Before Next Injury

Casey Fossum, James Shields, Ruddy Lugo, Seth McClung Cork Gaines No Comments »

  • Another day…another loss. James Shields was shaky in the first, but settled down and retired nine of the final ten he face. He struck out five in four innings.
  • Seth McClung had a rough outing and Joe Maddon made it clear that he has not decided who the closer is yet. If McClung continues to be inconsistent, Al Reyes is going to start getting some serious consideration.
  • Ruddy Lugo is blaming his rough start to Spring Training to rust from not pitching in winter ball during the off-season. Seven hits, one walk and four runs in four innings, is a lot of rust.
  • Oh boy! It’s the day we have all be waiting for. Today is like Christmas morning and what has Santa brought for us? Casey Fossum! Fossum returns to the mound today against the Tiggers. We are setting the over/under on his “hardest” pitch at 82 miles per hour. By “hardest” we of course mean “least soft”. Let’s face it, Fossum is the only major league pitcher whose arsenal does not include a fastball.
  • Papa Joe Maddon is having some t-shirts printed (for the players?) that will read “No regurgitation – Tell me what you think, not what you heard.” No regurgitation? Maybe he should have some printed for the fans. Only problem is they will tell you what they think and they will regurgitate (not necessarily in that order).
  • Just an interesting tidbit we picked up listening to yesterday’s game on WHNZ 1250. Yesterday’s opponent, the Houston Astros, are the only team the Rays have never faced during the regular season. We are too lazy to look it up, so we will take their word for it. Can anybody verify that for us? For example, have the Rays already faced all of the NL West teams during interleague play?