A Look At The Future: The Past Few Days On The Farm

Durham Bulls (20-17, 9 gb). 1B Kevin Witt is tied for the International League lead with 8 home runs, while batting .287. The biggest surprise for the Bulls must be CF Darnell McDonald. He is 6th in batting (.331) and 5th in slugging (.541) with 6 home runs, 28 RBI and 8 stolen bases. Elijah Dukes has also put up strong numbers the first 37 games (.309-4-18). SS B. J. Upton continues to lead the league in stolen bases with 18. He has also raised his average to .292 with 4 home runs and 19 RBI. Oh by the way…he has committed a couple of errors. The pitching staff has been incredible for the most part. Jamie Shields (2-2, 2.91, 1.20) has been the beacon of control with a 40:4 strikeout to walk ratio. Brian Stokes (2-1, 2.06, 1.14) is among the league leaders in ERA. Chris Seddon, Edwin Jackson and Jason Hammel, have all shown signs of brilliance but have been inconsistent.

Montgomery Biscuits (22-16, 0.5 gb). 2B Elliot Johnson has been a pleasant surprise for the Biscuits. He is 5th in the Southern League in home runs (7) and batting average (.322). Wes Bankston who is trying to make the conversion to 3B has missed half the season with an injury, but was hitting .333 on the shelf but has committed 333 errors (actually 11). 1B Gabriel Martinez has slowed down considerably after a hot start (.273-5-15). Jason Pridie is only hitting .221 with 1 home run, but is 8 for 8 in stolen bases. In the starting rotation, Tony Paguero (4-3, 1.97, 0.91) and Jim Magrane (6-2, 2.61, 1.16) have been the lone bright spots. In the bullpen, Juan Salas has yet to allow an earned run in 18.2 innings and has struck out 28.

Visalia Oaks (14-23, 11.5 gb). C Jahn Jaso and SS Reid Brignac continue to splinter the ball. They are tied for 7th in the California League with .343 batting averages. Brignac is tied for 6th with 6 home runs, while Shaun Cumberland leads the league in dingers (9) and Patrick Breen is 3rd (7). Cumberland is also 2nd in RBI 29, but is only hitting .231. From the mound, Christopher Mason (2-2, 2.50, 1.21) is the lone starting pitcher that has been consistently good.

SW Michigan Devil Rays (20-17, 3.5 gb). There haven’t been any early season standouts at the plate for the D-Rays. James Hall is batting .320 with 3 home runs, but is 2-8 in stolen bases. Garrett Groce is batting .291 and leads the league with 13 stolen bases. On the other hand, the pitching staff continues to be solid with several members that could be seen in Tampa in the years to come. Wade Davis (3-0, 1.23, 1.15) has a big league arm, but is still struggling with his control. He has only surrendered 19 hits in 36.2 innings but has also allowed 23 walks. He is 4th in the league with 46 Ks. Jacob McGee (3-5, 3.12, 1.27) has been nearly as impressive with a league leading 55 strikeouts. The most impressive in the rotation might be Michael Wlodarczyk. In 48 innings, he is 4-1, with a 0.94 ERA and a 44 to 15 strikeout to walk ratio. In the bullpen, Greg Dupas has 9 saves in 15 appearances, with a 0.95 ERA.

The Hangover: This Past Weekend In The AL East

We apologize for the delay in posts. Today’s “Hangover” is both literally and well, ok it is literally. A member of the Rays Index family got married this past weekend in sunny southern California. We originally proposed to have a drink for every run the Rays scored while we were in San Diego, but then we realized we would be sober the entire trip. Needless to say, we came up with some other Devil Ray drinking rules…look for the D-Rays drinking game in the near future…we are back so, ON TO THE POSTS!

Boston Red Sox (22-14). The Idiots took 2 of 3 from the Evil Empire, and then played a total of 6 innings and lost all 3 games over the weekend, 1 to the Rangers and 2 to the gods who were angry for letting Jimmy Fallon from New York play a diehard member of Red Sox nation. Rumor has it Theo Epstein sacrificed a virgin to appease the gods. He must have gotten to the girl before her prom as the Sox rebounded to win their 12th straight against Baltimore despite threats of rain during the game.

New York Yankees (21-15). “Richard, who’s your favorite little rascal? Alfalfa? Or is it The Spankees?” The Bronx Roiders lost 2 of 3 to the Red Sox (again) but rebounded to take 2 of 3 from the A’s, who they always beat. Last night, the surprising Rangers took the opener of the 4 game set 4-2. The Yanks have been beset by injuries and age. This just in…Randy Johnson is 42 years old and is pitching like it. Jason Giambi left last night’s game with a needle stuck in his ass, Gary Sheffield has missed several games with a bruised ego, and Hideki Matsui will miss several months after losing his battle with Rodan. We feel awful.

Toronto Blue Jays (21-16). The Jays continue to hang in there, thanks in large part to the Rays. They took 2 of 3 from both the A’s and Tampa and are 1.5 games behind Boston. The team continues to score in bunches as they have scored at least 7 runs, 7 times in the past 2 weeks.

Baltimore Orioles (18-21). Kansas City can make a bad team look good and that was this case this past weekend as the O’s swept the lowly Royals. The joy was short-lived as the Red Sox brought them back down to earth with an 11-1 drubbing last night nd O’s fans are not the least bit happy about it. Maybe they should just forfeit all games against Boston.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays (15-23). You wanna see what it is like to have the Rays in first place? Turn your monitor upside down. Alas, it is not worth breaking a perfectly nice monitor over this team. Things were bad…they have gotten worse. The Rays now have the worst batting average in the majors (.230), last in the AL in OBP (.302), next to last in the AL in slugging (.384) and have only scored more runs than one AL team (Kansas City). What the heck is going on around here! The offense was supposed to be the lone bright spot for this team.

Name Change Suggestion?

It is looking more and more like the Baseball team in Tampa that we call the Tampa Bay Devil Rays… or Rays… or D-Rays is preparing for a name change. It would be the first major league baseball team to change their name without moving since the Houston Colt 45s in 1965 became the Astros. Of course, that is, if you don’t count the name change by the Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Which brings us to our point. What will the new name be? Some suggestions have included dropping the “Devil” and simply calling the team the Rays. Others have suggested a completely new identity to go along with the new outlook and new ownership of the team, including the Tarpons, which was the name of the longtime minor league team in Tampa. Personally, we are fond of the Tiger Sharks or T-Sharks. However, one of the other points of contention is the “Tampa Bay” part of the name. The Tampa Bay sports franchises are named for a body of water and of the few in the four major sports to NOT be named directly for a city or a state. The others are the Golden State Warriors, who are named indirectly for the state of California, The New England Patriots, and the schitzophrenic Angels, who are named for two cities. The options include changing the name to Tampa, which is unlikely as long as the team plays in St. Pete. Changing the name to St. Pete is also unlikely as St. Pete is not as recognizable as Tampa on the national scene. Also the Buccaneers are now a successful NFL franchise and it is in the best interest for the Rays ,or whatever their name will be, to continue to associate with that success by maintaining the moniker Tampa Bay.

There is one other option. The oranization could follow the lead of the Angels and most politicians and try to make everyone happy. It would also could be fun to honor the team’s most famous season ticket holder, Dick Vitale….We present THE TAMPA BAY DEVIL RAYS OF ST. PETERSBURG NEAR TAMPA, BABY!….Alas, this name, like most politicians while trying to make everyone happy, will succeed only in pissing everyone off.

Devil Rays may play name change [St. Pete Times]

It Smells Like A Used Diaper, Filled With Indian Food

Seattle 8, D-Rays 1. 2-7 in May…nough said.

The Hangover: Last Night In The AL East

Boston 14, New York 3. Randy Johnson: 3.2 innings, 5 hits, 5 walks, 7 runs…ouch.

Baltimore 7, Detroit 6. boring

Oakland 6, Toronto 5. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A Look At The Future: Yesterday On The Farm

Durham 6, Louisville 2. SP Brian Stokes was impressive, working into the 7th inning, allowing 7 hits, no walks and 2 runs (1 earned) while striking out 7. He improved to 2-0 and his ERA went up to 1.83. CF Darnell McDonald continues to push his way into the crowded group of D-Ray outfield prospects. He went 1-4 with his 6th home run. SS B. J. Upton went 3-4 with an RBI and a run. He also stole his league leading 16th base and is now hitting .296. LF Elijah Dukes went 2-4 with 2 doubles, 2 runs and 2 RBI. He is now hitting .318.

Montgomery 3, Huntsville 0. 2B Eliot Johnson went 1-4 with a double and a run scored. He is hitting .326. Jason Pridie went 1-4 with his 8th stolen base. Another big start for Jim Magrane. He worked 6 shutout innings, giving up 3 hits and 2 walks. He struck out 5.

Visalia 8, Rancho Cucamonga 5. Reid Brignac went 2-5 with 2 doubles and 2 RBI and is now hitting .362. John Jaso went 2-5 and is now hitting .353. Shaun Cumberland went 2-4 and hit his 8th and 9th home runs of the season.

SW Michigan 11, Clinton 3. Did we mention that neither Upton nor Brignac committed an error?

50 Games For Delmon Young

The word finally came down from the president of the International League. Delmon Young, who threw a bat at an umpire two weeks ago, will be suspended for 50 games. He was given 10 days time served for the games he has already missed, and will be eligible to return to the Durham Bulls for the June 19 home game against Charlotte. Young also has to perform 50 hours of comunity service. The president of the IL stated that he would have only suspended Young for the entire season if he could determine that Young intended to hit the umpire. We are not going to jump on the trade Delmon Young bandwagon. The fact is, he is one of ours. He is a Devil Ray, and as long as he is, we will support him. We hated Me-Shawn before he was a buc…we loved him as a buc…and now we hate him more than ever. We will let others criticize and demonize. Do we condone what he did? Absolutely not. We were embarrased and sick to our stomach that the future of the organization could do such a thing. We believe the suspension was about right and we hope he learns from this, but the fact remains he is a D-Ray and we will support him as long as he is part of this organization.

Prospect Young suspended for 50 games [mlb.com]
Delmon Young Video [Rays Index]

Devil Ray Blogtopia

• Who is Ty Wiggington? One blogger wonders who that is wearing Ty Wiggington’s uniform [Rays Talk]
• And another blogger seems to think the Ray’s pitchers walk too many batters…Um, Ya Think? They even wrote a song about it. We thought we had too much free time. [Boys of Summer]
• Ray’s VP of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman likes Coldplay. Personally, we had him pegged more as a Yanni guy [My Coldplay.com]
• Attending Devil Ray’s games is masochistic. [Tangent Universe]
• The Devil Rays are the best pro sports deal in town. Of course the Lightning and the Bucs aren’t playing right now. [Sticks of Fire]
• One way to punish Delmon Young…promote him to the majors [Mets guy in Michigan]
• Apparently the removal of Vince Naimoli is the baseball equivalent of the liberation of East Germany. [Boston Herald Blog]
• One writer thinks the Devil Rays will lose between 122-132 games this season. Of course only one team in the HISTORY of baseball has lost more than 120 in a season. The 1899 Cleveland Spiders went 20-134. You can look it up. Vince Naimoli’s grandfather owned that team (we made that up) [Siberian Baseball]

We’re In A Glass Case Of Emotion!

Seattle 6, D-Rays 3. Jonny Gomes is good (12th home run)…The Bullpen is bad (another blown lead). It has now been almost a month since the Rays won back-to-back games. We are too frustrated to talk about it. Wait…yep, the Bullpen just blew another lead back at the team hotel.

The Hangover: Yesterday In The AL East

Toronto 5, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim near Disney Land 1. Toronto pulled within 2 games of division leaders Boston and New York. Alex Rios and Benji Molina hit home runs in the 5-run 5th. Rios is now hitting .384, Canadian, which is about .270 American.

Boston, New York and Baltimore had the night off so they could polish the gold cleats on their spikes.