Woohoo! The Rays won and no one new needs to be added to the DL. Tampa Bay took down the Toronto Blue Jays 4-3 on Tuesday night. (Hey, I didn’t say it wasn’t a nail biter, just that they won.)

Starter David Price worked through seven full innings, giving up all three runs to the Jays in the third.

Skipper Joe Maddon said of Price’s performance:

“Just like in his last game, I thought he got better as the game was in progress. I think he could have easily gone out if we needed him to and pitched the eighth inning. Really good stuff, nothing had diminished by the end of the seventh inning.”

-Jeff Niemann is officially on the DL and Josh Lueke has been added to the roster to give the bullpen another arm. In case you didn’t know, Niemann is 6′ 9″. When he broke his leg in Toronto, Rays trainer Ron Porterfield called the Toronto Raptors (that’s an NBA team for you one-sport lovers) for crutches. Brilliant. Before Niemann had crutches, he was being pushed around in a wheelchair by teammate Will Rhymes.

In case you’re ever wheelchair-bound, you might want someone other than Rhymes to guide ya. According to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times:

Rhymes, though, wasn’t much of a wheelman, at one point rolling Niemann’s bad foot into an elevator door. “Once he gets rolling he’s hard to stop,” Rhymes said.

-I will be out of town, and surrounded by non-Rays fans, while they take on the Red Sox and the Braves this week. For the sake of my team and my phone, I hope that the score updates that I receive are good ones.

-Jeremy Hellickson (3-0, 2.95) is scheduled to face off against Boston’s Clay Buchholz (4-1, 8.31) tonight at the Trop at 7:10. Here’s hoping the winning streak for the Sox ends at 5.

By Artist Kevin Dresser

Another day, another player who will be placed on the disabled list.

Sure, the Rays won 7-1 over the Jays last night, scoring six of those runs in the fifth inning, but they had to do it without their starter. Righty Jeff Niemann caught a line drive from Adam Lind on the leg in the first inning and was pulled from the game before the start of the second. » Continue reading “Rays: Woe Is Us”

It’s Monday. Mondays usually stink. But, yesterday the Rays stopped a three-game skid with a 9-8 win over the Orioles.

So, let’s focus on some fun things this afternoon.

Tampa Bay’s pitchers who had the day off sure had some fun yesterday. Joel Peralta danced in the dugout, and as you can see from this screen grab from Cork Gaines, pitching coach Jim Hickey was not all that impressed.

Peralta proceeded to flutter his hands and prance off as if he were a ballerina.

Before the game, David Price helped Jeremy Hellickson show some love for Mom. The following photo comes from Dave Haller, the Director of Communications for the Tampa Bay Rays. » Continue reading “Rays: Beating The Monday Blues”

After a pre-state finals dinner in 1998.

My father was not happy when he realized I was left-handed.  I’m not really sure why, but he wanted a right-handed son.  So he tried to blame mom.  “Who in your family is left-handed?” he asked.  When Dad realized I enjoyed baseball, all of a sudden it was OK to be a southpaw.  Mom joined in, and learned early on how to score games.  She figured, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

As a kid, I was always throwing a ball against the front steps and catching the rebound. Our house was a small, wood-frame house up on cinder blocks, and occasionally those throws at the steps missed their mark low and in or low and away,  and I had to crawl under the house to retrieve the ball.  I was a mess.  I threw a tennis ball off our A-frame roof and worked on catching fly balls.  I don’t know how mom put up with the constant thumping over her head as she swept or cooked dinner.  I do know that she never complained.

Mom actually bought a catcher’s mitt so I could throw bullpens at home.  She was a trooper.  She’d get down in the catcher’s crouch, and she caught everything.  Until I threw one sinking fastball just a little too hard that hit her in the leg, and she realized it was time to turn the mitt over to Dad.  If you ask her nicely, she will show you the knot that she still wears on that shin, and she’s damned proud of it. » Continue reading “Mothers: The Invisible Backbone Of Baseball”

Our Tampa Bay Rays fell back into a tie for first in the AL East with last night’s 5-2 loss against the Yankees. The featured photo of losing pitcher David Price in the DRaysBay recap captures the mood.

To make Price’s night a little tougher, a Twitter user decided to tweet this to the southpaw:

Kazmir, the one-time Rays standout, has not played in the bigs at all this season. In 2011, he played in one, yes, one game with the LA Angels in which he gave up 5 runs in 1.2 innings of work.

Somehow, I think Price (5-2, 2.98) is safe for now. » Continue reading “Rays: A Lesson In Tweeting After A Loss”

Before the start of last night’s game with the Yankees, I tweeted that I was hoping Jeff Niemann could give the Rays a good 6-7 innings. He did exactly that. He gave Tampa Bay seven strong innings, allowing only one run and six hits.

Sadly, he didn’t earn the win, but he did what a good starter is supposed to do: he gave his team a chance – a very good chance – to win.

Fernando Rodney went the rest of the way to get the win. So far this year, Rodney is the guy you want on the mound. He’s 2-0, and has nine saves in nine chances. His W.H.I.P. is 0 .77 and E.R.A. is even lower, at 0.57. Yes, those numbers are correct. » Continue reading “Rays: Joyce Jolts Yankees, Price Tries His Hand Tonight”

See that? By May 28th, the Rays will have played 16 more games against AL East teams.

In June, Tampa Bay has just six games against American League East foes.

Looks like the rest of this month is really gonna wear on my nerves. Tonight, Tampa Bay begins an eight-game road trip. James Shields (5-0, 3.05) gets the start against the Yankees and he’ll try to match a club record with a sixth straight win. Ivan Nova (3-1, 5.58) will be on the bump for New York.

-DRaysBay posted an injury recap in today’s Rays Tank.

As if the Rays needed anymore injuries, left fielder Desmond Jennings left Sunday’s game with what the team revealed is a left knee sprain. It’s the fourth leg injury the Rays have suffered so far this season, though one is more severe than the others: Luke Scott’s sore hamstring, Evan Longoria’s torn hamstring, B.J. Upton’s tight quad and now Jennings’ sprained knee.

Fun times.

-This next one is also cringe-worthy, but for very different reasons. For some reason Dick Crippen was featured in a video that was a Tampa Bay version of the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man” commercials.  I get it. Saturday was Cinco de Mayo and the Rays had Dos Equis specials. Still, the video is kinda creepy and so are the girls who are twirling their hair while with Crippen. Rays Index posted the video for your viewing discomfort.

Photo by Ryane Shields

Let me be perfectly honest: If someone told me back in March that come sometime in May, Baltimore would boast the best record in baseball, I would have smiled and nodded before trying to change the topic to something a bit more sane.

And yet, here we are. The Orioles are 19-9. The best of the bigs. Our Rays are 19-10 and second-best.

Yesterday, when the Rays were down 8-5, I chose to escape to poolside with a drink in my hand. You see, I was in the middle of my laundry day. The combination of that and Tampa Bay giving up a four run lead could have ruined my good mood, so after the fifth inning, I decided to check in on the game only when I had to move a load from the washer to the dryer. The Rays lost 9-5. Personally, I made the right choice.

But it’s Monday. This days tends to stink all on its own so that’s enough about losses. Keep reading for some happier Rays related things.

» Continue reading “Daily Rays: An Interesting Suggestion, Players And Pooches, And More”

Sorry Bryce, no beer for you.

A week ago yesterday, Bryce Harper made his major league debut at Dodger Stadium to a chorus of boos. I didn’t get it.  Harper is a nineteen-year-old who has been bestowed the mantle of the games next, well, Mantle.  Or just simply baseball’s next superstar.

And here he was getting booed.  He played through the boos and probably used them to fuel the fire of excellence that he pursues.

Last night, in the tenth inning at Tropicana Field, boos cascaded down to the field, bounced off the turf, and pinballed among the ceiling rings.  Brandon Gomes was struggling.  He was struggling to throw strikes, and the Rays were in danger of having a ten game home winning streak fall by the wayside.

Jim Hickey made a trip to the mound, and it became obvious that Gomes was going to have to hold the fort.  While Wade Davis and Joel Peralta stood up and stretched briefly in the bullpen, neither began to throw.  The mound fixated on Hickey and Joe Maddon in the dugout.  I won’t try to read their minds, but I know they were trying to win the game.  They were also, I would bet, concerned about a pitcher who might lose all confidence.

And the boos continued.

I was looking at Gomes’ face as he yanked one pitch and then had the next one sail on him.  It was obvious how much this mattered to him, and it was also apparent that he was giving it his best shot.  Maybe, just maybe, he was trying too hard.

Somehow, after throwing only ten strikes in twenty-five pitches, he escaped the inning.  And then the fans cheered loudly, not sarcastically as they had when he had thrown one of his first strikes.  As the last out had been recorded, his teammates rose and came to the dugout steps to greet him.  It was obvious how concerned they were for him.

The next inning, he went out and threw eleven strikes in seventeen pitches, and it seemed he had his old mojo back.  Three routine ground balls and the inning was over.  Hopefully, Gomes has crossed his roughest waters and found himself.  People seem to have forgotten that he pitched in forty games last year, and filled a vital role out of the ‘pen, while posting a 2.92 ERA and going 2-1.

You see, I don’t like boos.  I can never recall booing, even if it was the Evil Empire in the other dugout.  The Rays do a great deal for the Tampa Bay community.  Their organization is well-run, and they bust their butts every time they take the field.  If they didn’t hustle, then that might make booing acceptable.  Might.

The Rays players, following the lead of Maddon, have attempted to become family with folks in the Tampa Bay region.  And who would boo a family member?  Hopefully The Trop will be filled today with fans enjoying some Everglades BBQ or a Rays Cuban Sandwich.  Maybe they will even responsibly hoist a beer or two.  I just hope they go easy on the boos. » Continue reading “Rays: Cheer, Have A Beer, But Leave The Boos Behind”

Soak it in, Rays fans.

With tonight’s 7-2 win over the A’s, the Rays have the best record in the AL East. They also have the best record in the American League. And, as you may have guessed by now, they also have the best record in Major League Baseball.

As far as baseball seasons go, it’s still verrrrry early and we especially know that game 162 can matter a heck of a lot. But still, it’s fun to see, isn’t it?