All Entries in the "Reflections on the Rays" Category
The Arrival of Jennings, Is it Too Little Too Late?
Generally I haven’t been a big fan of ESPN’s Sweet Spot Blog over the past few months. The writing of David Schoenfield just doesn’t compare of the wit and insights we used to see in that space when Rob Neyer was at the helm. But, I will give Schoenfield his credit as he does occasionally [...]
What The Tampa Bay Rays Need to do in the Second Half
The season is halfway over and it appears that the Rays are still hanging on to a place at the table come October. Being 6 games out, the chances of taking the Division seem slim, but given the equation of a normal team in Major League Baseball of winning 50, losing 50, and fighting for [...]
The Tampa Bay Rays After 5 and a Half Weeks
The Rays are one of the hottest teams in Major League Baseball with 22 wins. They have won 7 of their last 10 games and are sitting in first place with the Yankees now in second by 1 game, the Rays are now 22-15 on the season. Pitching and hitting have equalized [...]
For the Rays, Pitching is Keeping the Ship a Float!
A couple weeks ago, I had written that once the Rays bats start to get hot, lookout. Well, it is not that the team is batting at its full potential, but the pitching staff has really held their ground and the Rays are consistently winning. What they have done lately is most [...]
The Tampa Bay Rays Pitching Gets Them to .500
You have to take your hat off to the Tampa Bay Rays. Their play had to be on the mark for the last two weeks and it has been just that. The team is 8-3 out of the last 11 with a .500 record after starting the season 0-6. It was a must [...]
Taking a Look at the Rays in Week Two and Looking Forward to Week Three
The Tampa Rays have been able to pick up the pace and stay in contention with this past weeks play. Starting 0-6 and a surprise retirement by Ramirez, they have stayed the course and gained valuable ground by playing with consistency. Winning four in a row has the Rays just 2.5 games out of first [...]
The Rays 0-6 Start Are Now Without Ramirez…Now What?
Covering the Tampa Bay Rays was supposed to be a year of excitement on the field. Winning has gotten off to a slow start as well as the bats of Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon. A start of 0-6 is certainly not what any team GM or manager wants to contend with. In [...]
Is the American League East Caught in a Time Warp?
With the recent signings by the New York Yankees of Bartolo Colon and Andruw Jones, the Tampa Bay Rays of Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez and the Baltimore Orioles of Derrek Lee and Vladimir Guerrero you have to wonder if these teams realize that it is 2011 and not 2005. If it were 2005, the [...]
ARE THE RAYS SERIOUS?!?
Just when you think you have the Rays’ figured out, they go and have an off-season that defies all logic and seeming desire to win. How else can you explain replacing Carlos Pena and Carl Crawford with Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez? It’s obvious that these two were thrown into the off-season recycle bin by [...]
American and National League Divisional Series Prediction
OK, this is my first attempt at a webcast so it’s bound to be a little rough around the edges. I now see that it is much easier doing one of these with at least one more person like on the BBA Baseball Talk podcasts or online with the guys over at Pro Rumors TV. [...]
My Recent Appearance on Pro Rumors TV
As some of you already know, I was asked over the weekend to be a guest on the up & coming webcast, Pro Rumors TV with hosts Allan and Ted (a Yankees fan). This was my second time on the show with them. The first time I just called in not knowing this was a [...]
AL East – Who are the Pretenders and Contenders
Right now we are just about six weeks into the 2010 Major League Baseball Season, and the AL East is looking like the strongest of the American League. With both the Rays and Yankees off to fast starts, it is looking like a two team race. As the cool days of Spring move into the [...]
Breaking News: The Rays Are Sellers, and Looking Towards 2010
They’ve done it. I asked them to. I suggested it. But I didn’t expect them to do it. But they did it. I can’t believe they actually did it. Image via Wikipedia The Tampa Bay Rays have traded Scott Kazmir. My logic at the beginning of the season was as sound then as it is [...]
The Current Mindset of the Rays
It’s hard to believe that in this decade, Tampa Bay major sports franchises have been to the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the Stanley Cup Finals. Not bad for a city that has, at other times, been synonymous with horrendous teams (the Buccaneers before this decade, and the Rays before last season). What have [...]
The Rays After 40 Games
The 2009 Tampa Bay Rays played their fortieth game of the season on Monday, May 18th and in so doing got themselves back to the .500 mark at 20-20. But at this point, things that went right in 2008 so far have not in 2009, and the Rays find themselves in fourth place in their [...]
Rays Reflections
David Price and Andy Sonnanstine are exhibits A and B in a lesson about how valuable experience can be when making a major league roster or, more importantly, a starting rotation. Though I am a big fan of Andy’s, anyone can see that Price is likely a far more talented pitcher in every aspect of [...]
Reflections on the Rays
In pre-season of 2008, I picked the Tampa Bay Rays to make some noise in the American League, to win 25 more games than they had the year before, to top the Seattle Mariners by 18 games, and to make a run at the wild card in the American League. And if you managed to [...]
Tampa Bay Rays Off Season Report
Season Wrap Up Who would have imagined that the newly renamed Rays would have made history in 2008? After finishing last in the AL East in 2007, they finished first in 2008, surpassing the mighty Yankees and Red Sox with their 97 wins. Not only did they win the AL East, but they also won [...]
Sitting On Top of the Bay
Tampa Bay At the beginning of the year, I thought this was going to be the best year the Rays ever had, but I didn’t think they’d be in 1st place come September. Their pitching staff has been outstanding, especially their starters Scott Kazmir (after missing the first month of the season), James Shields, Matt [...]
Rays of Hope for the Future of Baseball in Tampa Bay
Some things in baseball are just flat out wrong! When an exciting team with as great of a story as the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays have going, it’s just a crying shame to know that they only play in front of a home crowd of under 22K fans per game in the same year they [...]
Team Analysis: AL East – Tampa Bay Rays
AL East Tampa Bay Rays C – Dioner Navarro: AAA quality with a VORP of -4.0 1B – Carlos Pena: A breakout year in which he finally reached the peak that scouts thought he should have reached a few years ago. Better late than never might be his new motto! 2B – Akinori Iwamura: A [...]
Tampa Bay Devil Rays! New Look, New Name, Making Some Deals And Possibly A New Field!
This is an article I found & I thought it was worth publishing on the site. This is one Tampa Bay Rays fan’s perspective, but I think Joe Gonzales, the author of the article below, has reason to be excited. Good for them! The Red Sox and Yankees could use the extra competition to stay sharp [...]
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