All Entries Tagged With: "Tampa Bay Rays"
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 Mariners
Last October, Jack Zduriencik was anointed Seattle’s next GM after a ton of success in Milwaukee as Special Assistant to the GM for Player Personnel and Director of Amateur Scouting (and you thought his name was a mouthful, whew!). He may come in with a scouting background to bolster Seattle’s already-strong scouting department, but his [...]
Indians Acquire Salas in Trade with Rays, Designate Marte for Assignment
On Thursday, the Indians made a few roster moves, one in particular which raised some eyebrows in Northeast Ohio. To start things off, the Tribe traded with the Tampa Bay Rays and acquired reliever Juan Salas for minor league infielder Isaias Velasquez. Salas has seen action with the Rays during the past three seasons, but [...]
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 [...]
Tribe Signs Graffanino to Minor League Deal
With a busy, yet slow off season still yet to end, even though pitchers and catchers have already reported to spring training, the Indians decided that they didn’t have enough veteran talent with minor league contracts and major league invites to spring training, so they signed Tony Graffanino to one. Graffanino was originally drafted in [...]
Reflections on the Blue Jays’ Off Season
Hi everyone, and greetings from the great white north (metaphorically speaking, in my case– I actually live in Washington DC). I’m Hugo, and Rincewind and I (more on that later) run Bluebird Banter, a blog dedicated to discussions and ruminations on our favourite azure-tinged corvids. It’s a great site full of great folks and we’d [...]
Reviewing the 2008 World Series Program
There is no doubt that the story lines for this year’s World Series were endless as the Phillies, a historic baseball franchise, were heading back to the Series to try to end a quarter century drought, and the Rays, who had never even had a winning season in their history, faced off. As one can [...]
Philadelphia Phillies Off Season Report
Season Wrap Up The Phillies beat the Tampa Bay Rays, MLB‘s Cinderella story of 2008, to become the World Series Champs! What more needs to be said about 2008 except that Cole Hamels proved that he IS a # 1 starter with his performance in the playoffs. Just in case anyone was questioning his ability [...]
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 [...]
Who Had the Best Organization in the MLB in 2008?
According to Maury Brown and his staff at the Biz of Baseball, they picked the Tampa Bay Rays. We saw the Rays go from being one of the worst teams in baseball in 2007 to one of the best teams in 2008 as they hosted the Phillies in the first two games of the World [...]
Philadelphia is One Win Away from Baseball Euphoria!
After this weekend the Phillies have taken a commanding 3 games to 1 lead over the Rays going into tonight’s game at home at Citizen’s Bank Park. In game 3, the Phillies 45 year old starter Jamie Moyer pitched better than anyone thought was possible against the Rays Matt Garza (MVP of the ALCS). He [...]
My Thoughts on Game 1…
Phillies Take Game 1 with a Score of 3-2 First, I’ll toot my own horn. This was a must win for the Phillies. They needed to win at least 1 out of 2 in Tampa Bay in order to have any chance at winning the series. This was their best chance at doing that with [...]
2008 World Series Preview
Tampa Bay Rays (97-65) Vs. Philadelphia Phillies (92-70) This first area of concern I have is how long the Phillies had to wait for the Rays to eliminate the Red Sox (95-67). It has been a week since the Phillies have played against an opponent as they eliminated the Dodgers (84-78) in 5 games while [...]
The American League Rookie of the Year Prediction
The American League Rookie of the Year Award has some big names in the hunt. One played two months in the league before receiving a big contract extension, one was well known for his post season appearance last year and one even flew under the radar for most of the season even though he put [...]
There’s A New Beast in the AL East
The Tampa Bay Rays Advance to the 2008 World Series After being beaten in game 6 by Josh Beckett and the Red Sox, a game the Rays should have won, the Rays beat Jon Lester in game 7, a game they should have lost. Bottom line: the Rays played better in 4 of the 7 [...]
Boston Forces Game 7 in the ALCS Against the Rays
Josh Beckett out performed James “Big Game” Shields to get the win in game 6 and for the second year in a row, have come back from being down 3 games to 1 and force a deciding game 7. In tomorrow’s match up we have Boston’s new Ace of the staff, Jon Lester going up [...]
Last Chance for the Rays…the Bottom of the 9th
In comes the Boston closer, Jonathan Papelbon with his patented stare. First up is the scary rookie 3B Evan Longoria. This is the biggest at bat of the inning in my opinion. Longoria grounds out to SS Jed Lowrie. 1 out! Boston is 2 outs away from forcing a 7th game once again! CF Carl [...]
Boston Leads 4-2 Going into the Top of the 9th
RF Drew faces Bradford to lead off the 9th and hits a line drive to LF Crawford. 1 out. LF Bay is 5 for 8 against Bradford in his career. He grounds out to the SS. The Rays remove Bradford for Trevor Miller. I’m not sure about this move. It doesn’t make much sense as [...]
Bottom of the 8th
New pitcher for Boston is rookie and former starting pitcher Justin Masterson. SS Jason Bartlett is leading off the 8th down 4-2. He was hit by a pitch again. No outs, man on first. 2B Iwamura is 0-3 tonight. Masterson looks a bit nervous up there right now, but Varitek, with a 1-0 count goes [...]
Top of the 8th
CF Crisp faces Balfour and has a leadoff walk. Manager Joe Maddon, probably this year’s manager of the year has just taken out Balfour, replaced by Chad Bradford, the knuckelscrapping submarine pitcher to face 2B Pedroia. 2B Pedroia faces Bradford with Crisp on 1B without any outs. Will Crisp take off to remove the possible [...]
Bottom of the 7th as Boston Leads 4-2
Willie Aybar is pinch hitting for DH Cliff Floyd, but he pops up in foul ground to 3B Kevin Youkilis. 1 out. C Navarro is up and the count is 0-2 then he hits a towering pop up in foul ground to LF Jason Bay. 2 outs. RF Zobrist flies out to the warning track [...]
Top of the 7th as Boston Leads 4-2
RF J.D. Drew leads off and popped up for the first out. LF Bay is hit by a pitch on the hip. 1B Kotsay is 1-3 in the game, a single in the second inning. He hits a high chopper to Howell, the pitcher and is thrown out at 1B. Bay moves onto 2B. Howell [...]
Rays Half of the 6th Inning
Okajima is now pitching for the Red Sox. The Red Sox are leading 4-2 CF B.J. Upton and he lines out to 3B Youkilis. 1 out. 1B Pena, whos is hitting .350 with 3 HRs and 6 RBIs in this series is now up with 1 out. Full count. It was a late call, but [...]
Red Sox Half of the 6th Inning
Ben Zobrist stays in the game playing RF for the Rays! 1B Kotsay leads off for the Sox. What an amazing leaping stab by 2B Iwamura with that alligator glove of his! Wow! What a play! He has definately adjusted to his move to 2B as his whole career, even in Japan, he was a [...]
5th Inning – Rays
The commentators are saying that Beckett is pitching in pain and is taking some extra time warming up before the start of this half inning. C Navarro ropes a single to RF. PH Ben Zobrist is hitting for RF Gabe Gross. Count is 1-2 then Zobrist pops out to CF and is now 0-3 this [...]
5th Inning – Boston
DH Ortiz, who’s hitting .143 with 1 HR and 3 RBI leads off…who hits Shields’ 91st pitch as a pop fly to LF. 1 out. Youkilis lines out to the next rookie of the year, 3B Evan Longoria. 2 outs. Drew hits another 2-out line drive double over the head of RF Gabe Gross. Bay [...]
Bottom of the 4th Inning
Former Sox 1B and Northeastern University graduate from Haverhill, MA, Carlos Pena pops up to 3B Kevin Youkilis for the first out of the inning. 3B Evan Longoria flied out to CF. 2 outs. LF Crawford is 0-5 after going 5 for 5 in a previous game in this series. On Beckett’s 54th pitch of [...]
Top of the 4th Inning
Darrell Cousins, the home plate umpire has left the game due to injury. If there was ever a time for Ques Tec, now might have been one of those times. I wonder if this delay will affect James Shields who isn’t pitching as dominant as he was earlier in this series. This is ridiculously long! [...]
Bottom of the 3rd
RF Gabe Gross leads off the Rays third inning. Beckett’s fastball is a few mph slower than usual, but he’s pitching well as Gross strikesout looking. 1 out. SS Jason Bartlett is clipped by a pitch. Bartlett didn’t even attempt to get out of the way. He barely moved. 2B Iwamura, who struckout in the [...]
Top of the 3rd
CF Coco Crisp leads off and is hitting .462 in the ALCS so far. Coco was a key part to the other nights second best comeback in playoff history. He had a bunt single in the first, but was picked off 1B soon after. The count is 2-2 and Crisp flies out to his counterpart [...]
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