Devil Rays @ Rangers Tidbits

Tampa enters leg 2 of this inexplicable road trip which has the D-Rays going from Boston to Arlington and then BACK to New York to face the Yankees. Luckily for the Rays, the Rangers finished a 3 games series in Seattle and needed a red-eye flight that probably landed in Dallas early this morning. The Rays enter this weekend series against the Rangers having salvaged the series finale against the Red Sox, and getting back to .500 at 8-8. The Rangers enter the series on a bit of an upswing. After starting the season 2-7, they have won 5 of 7 and just took two of three from the Seattle Mariners top run their record to 7-9 on the season. SS Michael Young is doing his usual thing at the plate hitting .348 to start the season. 3B Hank Blalock (.295-3-11) and 1B Mark Teixeira (.311-2-7) have been consistent early on. DH Phil Nevin leads the team with 4 homers and 15 RBI. There are no real base stealing threats on the team.

Tonight, Seth McClung will try to get his season on track as he faces Kameron Loe. McClung’s curveball has abandoned him this season and he has stated that he may stop throwing it all together. Loe has yet to win a game but has pitched well enough to do so. In his last outing he went 7 innings against the A’s surrendering 5 hits, 1 walk and 1 unearned run taking a no-decision. Saturday’s starters for both clubs have yet to be settled. Although no official decision has been made we would be surprised if Edwin Jackson wasn’t recalled from Durham. Rick Bauer is scheduled for the Rangers, but he pitched in relief on Thursday night. If he starts, he wouldn’t go very deep into the game. Buck Schowalter has stated that his back up plan would be to piece-meal the game with relievers pitching 2-3 innings each. On Sunday, Casey Fossum will once again unleash his “Fossum Flop”. He will face John Koronka who is off to a solid start (2-1, 3.94). In his last start, he went 5 innnings against Seattle giving up 5 hits, 4 walks and 1 run, striking out 4.

Probable Pitchers
Friday, 8:05 et
Devil Rays Seth McClung, RHP (1-2, 9.00)
Rangers Kameron Loe, RHP (0-2, 3.38)

Saturday, 8:05 et
Devil Rays Edwin Jackson (?), RHP (0-0, 0.00)
Rangers Rick Bauer (?), RHP (1-0, 4.66)

Sunday, 2:05 et
Devil Rays Casey Fossum, LHP (0-0, 5.50)
Rangers John Koronka, LHP (2-1, 3.94)

Down On The Farm

[CLICK IMAGES BELOW TO SEE STATS FOR SOME OF D-RAYS TOP PROSPECTS]

Durham Bulls (AAA)
Unlike their Major League counterparts, the Bulls are running like, well, like the Bulls of Pamplona. In 14 games they lead the International League with 30 stolen bases, 11 more than the next team. In fact they have the top two thieves in the IL, Delmon Young (10) and B. J. “Don’t call me Melvin” Upton (8). As noted last week, Upton hit a walk-off grand slam, his first home run of the season, in a 5-4 victory over the Toledo Mud Hens. As a whole, the team has not flexed their muscles in the power department. Firstbaseman Kevin Witt leads the team with 3 home runs. As mentioned earlier, Upton has only hit one in the first two weeks of the season and Young has failed to clear the fence yet. Unfortunately, Upton continues to struggle in the field with 7 errors in the first 14 games. On a brighter not, Young is hitting .396, with a .441 OBP. In fact young has 4 walks and 5 strikeouts. The only hole in his game to this point was that he tended to strike out a bit too much and was not drawing any walks. Last season in 52 games at Durham his strikeout to walk ratio was 33/4. Young is such a good hitter, that we have the feeling that he could do anything he put his mind to.

Add the name Elijah Dukes to the list of talented outfielders in the Devil Rays organization (Josh who?). About the only thing holding back Dukes from superstardom, might be his emotions. Last season he was ejected from 5 games and suspended twice. However, nobody doubts his physical tools and at times he has put them on display early on this season. He is only batting .269, but he has an OBP of .356 and is slugging .500.

Another bright note on the young season has been the starting pitching. Of the pitchers that have started a game for Durham, only Jackson has an ERA north of 3.00. Jamie Shields, in 3 starts is 0-1 with a 2.76 ERA, but has an impressive strikeout to walk ratio of 17-1. Chris Seddon has an ERA of 0.82 in his first starts of the year.

Montgomery Biscuits (AA)
Montgomery firstbaseman Gabriel Martinez is as hot as a, well he’s as hot as a biscuit. In the first 14 games of the season he is second in the Southern League in batting (.357) and second in slugging (.690). Martinez has never hinted at this sort of success in the past, so it will be interesting if he can keep it up. One prospect that the Rays have high hopes for at Montgomery is Wes Bankston. Bankston a firstbaseman has spent most of the season playing third base. The move to third base is designed to speed his ascent to the majors. The move has been shaky to start, as he has committed 6 errors in the first two weeks of the season.

Like the staff at Durham, the Biscuit’s pitching has been solid early on. Only one starting pitcher has an ERA over 4.00. Leading the way has been Tony Pequero, who is 2-1 with a 2.33 ERA in 3 starts. In 19.1 innings he has surrendered only 13 hits and 1 walk while striking out 10. Chuck Tiffany, the other pitcher in the Dodger trade this past off-season has been solid, but he has not been the strikeout artist he has shown in past seasons, with 7 K’s in 12.1 innings.

Visalia Oaks (High-level A)
The Oaks put on an offensive display on April 12^th, hitting 8 home runs in a 17-15 victory over the Bakersfield Blaze. The onslaught was led by the “Cajun God of Baseball”, Reid Brignac, who hit 3 round-trippers and drove in 8. Shaun Cumberland and Patrick Breen hit two a piece. On the season, Brignac is hitting .353/.407/.569. However, he does have 6 errors in the first two weeks of the season. Between Brignac and Upton, the first one to figure out how to field the position will likely end up the shortstop of Tampa Bay’s future. The race is on! Outfield prospects Francisco Leandro and Fernando Perez are off to very slow starts.

The lone bright spots on the Oaks pitching staff have been James Houser and Christopher Mason. Houser has a 0.82 ERA in his first two starts, giving up only 5 hits in 11 innings while walking 4 and striking out 6. Mason has an equally impressive 1.80 ERA in 2 starts. There is not a single reliever on the staff with an ERA less than 5.00.

Southwest Michigan Devil Rays (A)
Remember this name…Wade Davis. If all goes well, the D-Rays starting rotation will consist of Scott Kazmir, Jeff Niemann, Mark Hendrickson, Edwin Jackson and Wade Davis with Wade Townsend closing. Will it actually work out that way? Probably not, but it could be a great staff. Kazmir is already there and is an ace in the making. Hendrickson is starting to look like a solid left-handed starter. Jackson has the talent and could be up to stay very soon. Niemann, the Rays first pick of the 2004 draft is nursing a sore shoulder and is yet to pitch this season and appears to be a year away at best. Townsend, the first pick of the Rays in 2005, is also coming back from an injury and in the long run may be better suited for the bullpen. And Wade Davis. Davis, the third round pick in 2004 has been nothing short of outstanding early on this season. In 3 starts he is 1-0 with a 0.57 ERA. In 15.2 innings he has surrendered 6(!) hits and 7 walks while striking out 22. He is clearly overpowering opposing batters in the Midwest League. He won’t be there long.

Jacob McGee, a lefty, has also been impressive early on. He is 1-2 in three starts with a 2.51 ERA. He has struck out 21 in 14.1 innings while only walking 5. On the offensive side of the ball, Matthew Spring, who may be the catcher of the future for the D-Rays is off to a solid start, hitting .318-2-4-2.

[CLICK IMAGES BELOW TO SEE STATS FOR SOME OF D-RAYS TOP PROSPECTS]

Going, Going, Gomes…Take That Tavarez!

We can’t underscore how big tonight’s game was for the psyche of the team. A sweep to start such a brutal part of the schedule would have been very damaging. Once again, good pitching makes you look like a good baseball team. Scott Kazmir, put together his second strong outing of the young season, going 5.2 innings giving up 4 hits, and 1 run while striking out seven. More importantly, he walked only one batter. He is still throwing too many pitches, with 101 before being removed with a cramp in his hand. The offense was led by Jonny Gomes, who hit two balls that might still be traveling. The second home run of the night was the sweetest, as it came off that idiot Julian “I am cray-Z” Tavarez. Without the ability to retaliate directly against Tavarez for sucker-punching Joey Gathright in spring training, the next best thing is to beat on his batting practice fastballs. Tavarez faced three batters, giving up Gomes’ moonshot, and back-to-back doubles to Damon Hollins and Ty Wiggington. We very much enjoyed that sequence. We are still giggling like school girls thinking about it. On the health watch, Carl Crawford was back in the lineup after missing one game with a sore shoulder.

Heeeeere’s Edwin!

As we mentioned earlier this week, with Mark Hendrickson still a week away from being able to return from the DL and Jason Hammel being sent back to Durham, the team is left without a starting pitcher for Saturday’s game in Texas. It is looking more and more like that pitcher will be Edwin Jackson. The Durham Bulls have stuck with their rotation this past week and Saturday would be Jackson’s normal turn in the rotation. Jackson, who came over in the trade that sent Danys Baez and Lance Carter to the Dodgers, was one of the last cuts during spring training. He had several impressive outings this spring. If Jackson is impressive on Saturday, Maddon will have an interesting decision to make. Is it too early in the season to give up on one of his current starters and go with a guy who figures to be a member of the rotation for years to come? The likely odd-man out would be Doug Waechter, who has struggled and could be used to shore up the bullpen. In 3 starts, Jackson is 1-1 with a 4.50 ERA. Against Norfolk, he went 4 innings giving up 3 hits and 3 runs with 4 walks and 4 strikeouts. In his second start against Richmond, he went 6 innings, giving up 4 hits and no runs while giving up 2 walks and striking out 4. In his last start against Toledo, he went 4 innings, giving up 10 hits and 4 runs, walking none and striking out 7.

The Curse of LaMar-Naimoli, cont’d…Again

Apparently this is turning into a regular feature on this site. Carl Crawford hyperextended his shoulder on Tuesday night diving for a ball. Even though he stayed in the game, he was a late scratch from last night’s game in Boston. He is listed as day-to-day. Crawford is the sixth regular to miss time this season due to injury, joining Julio Lugo, Rocco Baldelli, Jorge Cantu, Aubrey Huff and Mark Hendrickson. Then again, none of those of those injuries are “significant” according to the guys over at ESPN.com. Check out the image below from the preview for tonight’s game, in particular, the section at the bottom labeled “Injury Report”…hmmm?

You would think the D-Rays were the healthiest team in baseball right now

Red Sox wrap up 10-game homestand against Devil Rays [ESPN.com]

Mamma Said There’d Be Days Like This

We have always stated that we would rather our favorite teams get blown out then lose a close game. Also, if you are going to lay a stinker, you might as well do it against one of the better starting pitchers in the major leagues. The Stinker? You need look no further than the bottom of the third inning tonight. Here are the numbers from that inning…5 hits, 3 walks, 2 errors, 1 one wild pitch, 43 pitches and 7 runs. I can just hear Doug Waechter now. “How can I win the game if I don’t get any run support?” It was ugly. It was hard to watch. It WAS a Stinker. Enough said. Let’s move on. Tonight’s game and tomorrow’s are why the first game of the series was so important to the Rays. We knew tonight would be tough with Curt Schilling on the mound. However, tomorrow scared us just as much with Tim Wakefield on the mound. For his career, Wakefield is 13-1 against Tampa Bay with a 2.96 ERA. If we had to guess, we would say that Wakefield probably has a good record in his career against teams with lots of young inexperienced players. The types of players that tend to be impatient at the plate. Patience is a requirement when facing a knuckleballer. Still, a number of Rays have had success against Wakefield. Jorge Cantu is 5-16 (.313), Carl Crawford is 18-50 (.360) with a home run, Jonny Gomes is 3-9 (.333) and the veteran Travis Lee is 10-27 (.370) with 4(!) home runs. Look for Lee to make his second appearance as a cleanup hitter for the D-Rays. On a brighter note, Scott Kazmir makes his 7th career start against the Red Sox. That is the most starts against an opposing club. He is 2-1 with a 2.79 ERA. Both of his wins have come at Fenway Park. Normally we would worry about such a young pitcher pitching against such a good offensive team in a historic park such as Fenway. If Kazmir pitches poorly, it won’t be because of nerves.

Inconceivable!

Since the beginning of the 2000 season, the two teams that are tied with the most opposing batters hit? The Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Boston Red Sox, which can go a long way to explaining the bad blood between the teams. Each team has hit 495 batters over that span that has included 984 games for each ball club. Of those games they have faced each other 108 times or 11% of their total games. Of the 990 hit batters by the two teams combined, 120 have occurred while facing each other or 12%. Therefore there is no evidence that these teams throw at the each other’s batters any more than they do against any other teams. Rather it may just seem that way when they play each other due to the high number of hit batters they rack up normally. When both teams hit an opposing player in the same game it is not unnatural to think the second was a retaliation, whether is actually was or wasn’t. While the high number by D-Ray pitchers is partly due to bad pitching, it is also likely due to their former skipper Lou Piniella and his well chronicled bad temper. For the Red Sox, the reasoning is most likely due to current pitcher Curt Schilling and former Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez. Both are notorious for trying to establish the inside part of the plate as their territory…Still, there is no excuse for Julian Tavarez. That idiot is just crazy.

Julian Tavarez Is Crazy, Man, Crazy [Deadspin.com]

May The Force Be With You

We have been perplexed for a while by the way Jorge Cantu wears his batting helmet. Is the helmet too big? Does he just have a really small head? Are his eyes light-sensitive? None of these seemed to make much sense. We then thought that it was possible that he was imitating a player he admired when he was younger. In fact, the helmet pulled low over his eyes did seem familiar. We racked our brains trying to figure out what baseball player this reminded us of. Many sleepless nights passed and no answer, until finally…it dawned on us. It was not a baseball player we were seeking. In fact, we now believe that Cantu is paying homage to the great Luke Skywalker. Somehow we can imagine Cantu waving his hand at the pitcher and trying to use Jedi mind-tricks…”You WILL throw me a batting-practice fastball down the middle of the plate.” Now if he could just use the force make the pitching staff better.

“Jorge, your eyes can deceive you…don’t trust them…stretch out with your feelings”

Maddon Being Maddon

Let’s call it a learning curve. Much has been made of Joe Maddon and how he likes to do things a little differently. He is very computer savvy. He hates pitch counts. He used four outfielders AND a rover against David Ortiz. He wears funky glasses. But sometimes as a manager of a baseball team, you need to ignore your “gut” and just make the classic “baseball move”. In the bottom of the seventh, score tied 2-2, with two outs and runners on second and third, Maddon brought in Shawn Camp to face ManRam, Manny Ramirez. Manny Ramirez was put on this earth to do one thing…Drive in runs. He is an RBI machine. Some in Boston have described him as a classic idiot savant. The classic move is to intentionally walk Ramirez to face Jason Varitek. Instead, Maddon chose to pitch to Ramirez and he drove a 3-2 pitch over the head and off the glove of rightfielder Russ Branyon, to give the Red Sox a 4-2 lead. Maybe Maddon was playing off his gut, or maybe he wanted to pitch righty-righty, rather than face the switch-hitting Varitek. As we write this, the D-Rays have tied the game up in the top of the 8th and are threatening to score more. Hopefully, Maddon’s questionable decision won’t cost the Rays a win. [UPDATE] Welcome back to the bigs Chad Orvella. The team failed to retake the lead and ended up losing the game 7-4. This was a tough loss for the Rays to start the road trip. Tomorrow they have have to face the red-hot Curt Schilling.

Catch-Up Time, Again. Bush Slides Bolton In (Claims Fit Was “Comfortable”). Manny Stays. Palmeiro “Caught”. Random Ten. [Concrete Diaper Farm]

Devil Rays @ Red Sox Tidbits

Tonight the D-Rays take the first step in what is sure to be a grueling 22-game span when they take the field against the first-place Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park. The Red Sox, may very well be the best team in baseball right now. With re-emergence of Curt Schilling, a healthy Josh Beckett and the discovery of Jonathon Papplebon in the bullpen, their pitching staff may be as good as ever. The offense is as solid as ever and ManRam, Manny Ramirez (.239-0-3) has not yet begun to hit. The good news for the D-Rays is they will miss Josh Beckett this series. Tampa Bay was 6-13 against the Red Sox in 2005 (1-9 @ Fenway), and are 0-14-3 in their last 17 series in Fenway.

Probable Pitchers
Tuesday
Devil Rays Casey Fossum, LHP (0-0, 6.94)
Red Sox Matt Clement, RHP (1-1, 9.00)

Wednesday
Devil Rays Doug Waechter, RHP (0-0, 3.72)
Red Sox Curt Schilling, RHP (3-0, 1.64)

Thursday
Devil Rays Scott Kazmir, LHP (1-1, 4.82)
Red Sox Tim Wakefield, RHP (1-2, 4.34)