Down On The Farm: Seth McClung Bobblehead Night. Full Of Promise, Certain To Disappoint

Jacksonville 4, Montgomery 0. Derek Feldkamp dropped to 1-5 despite allowing only 3 hits and 1 walk in 6 innings. One fo the hits was a solo home run. The Biscuits managed only 4 hits, 2 by Fernando Perez. Jason Pridie had a triple, his 24th extra base hit of the season.

Vero Beach 2, St. Lucie 1 (gm. 1, 8 inn). Jeff Kamrath, making only his 5th start of the season, struck out 13 in 6.2 innings. He gave up 4 hits and walked 3 and allowed 1 run. Patrick Cottrell had a walk-off infield single in the bottom of the 8th.

Vero Beach 4, St. Lucie 2 (gm 2). Jino Gonzalez made his first start of the season and gave up just 1 run in 4 innings.

Columbus 5, Rome 4. Ryan Royster hit his 10th home run, a 2-run shot in the first and had a double to lead off the top of the 9th. Pinch-runner Desmond Jennings would come around to score on sac fly by Joey Callender. Josh Butler gave up 4 runs (3 earned) in 6.1 innings. In the first 6 innings, Butler was cruising, having only allowed 2 hits and 1 walk and 1 unearned run.

NOTES FROM DOWN ON THE FARM…

• The Princeton Rays will begin their season next Thursday. Not quite Cal Ripken, but the Rays have had a promotion or give-away, for every home game since 1991. This year’s games will include 5 bobblehead night for the “Legends of Princeton Baseball” series. Be sure to mark your calendars for Seth McClung bobblehead night.
• Former Biscuit Chris Seddon was claimed off of waivers by the Marlins after being designated for assignment.
• Columbus turned a triple play in the 8th inning. With runners on first and third, a ground ball was hit to second baseman Brett Grandstrand. Grandstrand stepped on second for the force, and threw home to get the runner trying to score. The original batter then tried to advance to second on the throw and was tagged out for your standard 4-2-4 triple play.

The Hangover: El Gato Strikes Again

Devil Rays 4, Royals 2.
Carlos Pena was 3-3 and hit his 12th home run and his 56th catwalk. How good has Pena been this season?

• Of the 12 players in the AL with at least 11 home runs, Pena’s 131 at bats are at least 56 fewer than any other player.
• He also raised his batting average to .313 which is 70 points higher than his career average coming into this season.
• His .641 SLG and 1.017 OPS would each be good for 2nd in the AL if he had enough at bats to qualify (Maglio Ordonez leads with .681/1.117)
• If Pena had just 190 at bats (many players are already over 200), he projects to 45 RBI, which would be tied for 6th in the AL.

As a side note…Pena has played in the majors for parts of 7 seasons. However, we dusted off our abacus and it looks like his service time was only 4 years heading into 2007 since he has spent much of those seven seasons in the minors (a player is a free agent after 6 years of ML service). If we are reading this right, and we like to think we are, Pena is only arbitration eligible at the end of the year and will not be a free agent unless the Rays fail to offer arbitration. Has anybody heard any differently?

As for James Shields…Well, James the Greater justs keeps on truckin’. Shields moves to 5-0 on the year. Only Josh Beckett in the AL has more wins without a loss. Another outing in which he pitches into the 8th inning. Only 4 hits and 1 walks. He did allow 2 more home runs, which gives him 11 on the season. That is tied for 9th in the majors. However, 5 of those came in his first 3 starts of the season. James the Greater.

Of course the big news today is that Andy Sonnanstine will make his major league debut tonight in Toronto and Thursday the Rays may add a future ace to their already deep pitching pool in the MLB draft. We will have more on the draft later, but tonight all eyes will be on the tele. The rotation is finally starting to come around. We know it is still early for JP Howell, but after one start he has given us hope that the Rays can send out a pitcher with a good chance of winning 3 out of 5 days. Can Sonny make it 4 of 5? We might be able to tolerate another month or two of “Edwin Jackson Development” if he was the only hole in the donut.

Looks like we are going to have a busy day around this here internets, so come back early and often.

DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…

• How do you know when you spend too much time neck-deep in all things Devil Rays? When THIS title scares the hell out of you. Too make ammends we are now running to the bathroom with a Maxim magazine.
• No surprise here. Akinori Iwamura will not make the trip to Toronto but should be ready to join the team in Miami when the Rays face the Marlins.
• The Crime Dog played first base for the Devil Rays. Is Carlos Pena El Gato del Crimen…The Crime Cat?
• Shawn Riggans just can’t catch a break (Like what we did there? Aren’t we clever). Riggans was placed on the 15-day DL and the Rays with Josh Paul already on the 60-day DL, were forced to add Raul Casanova to the 40-man roster and promote him to the Rays. To make room, Chris Seddon of Montgomery was designated for assignment.
• Carl Crawford has now tied Aubrey Huff for the franchise record for most hits (870). Fittingly, he did it with a triple.
• Akinori Iwamura is back with the latest installment of his diary. Not often the sentimental types, but we think it is pretty cool that in his first year in the US, Aki’s wife is pregnant and the baby is due on July 4.

Down On The Farm: Wade Townsend Is Still Human

Pawtucket 2, Durham 1. Jason Hammel finally allowed a few hits, but was still strong in his second outing of the season. Last night he worked 5 innings giving up 4 hits, 2 walks and 1 run. Chris Richard hit his 2nd home run and Jorge Cantu went 0-3.

Greenville 3, Columbus 0. After an impressive 2007 debut, Wade Townsend came back to earth a bit. He pitched 3 innings and gave up 3 runs on 4 hits and 3 walks. He struck out 4. Can we now calm down on the “Wade Townsend promoted to the Rays in September” talk? We have no reason to think that Townsend won’t be at Columbus all season. The first season after Tommy John surgery for a young pitcher is always about learning how to pitch all over again. The earliest we would see Townsend at the Trop is 2009.

NOTES FROM DOWN ON THE FARM…

• Walks were the downfall for Wade Townsend in his start yesterday.
• JP Howell tries to rebound this afternoon from his first start of the season.
• Yesterday was the Biscuits first full off-day in over a month and they took advantage by goin’fishin’. Chris Seddon will get the start today.

The Hangover: Is Bob Gibson’s Arm Available?

• Game 2 of the 2007 season was rained out yesterday. No makeup date has been scheduled.
• If the game had been played, Jonny Damon would not have been in the lineup. He is suffering from a sore calf, which caused him to be removed from Monday’s opener. In fact, now it looks like he is headed for the DL.
• Four of the Rays minor league affiliates will start today. The starting pitchers are scheduled to be: Jason Hammel (Durham), Chris Seddon (Montgomery), Jake McGee (Vero Beach), Wade Townsend (Columbus). Hammel will be followed at Durham by JP Howell, Jeff Niemann, Andy Sonnanstine and Mitch Talbot.
• The rain-out pushes the rotation back a day which is already on an extra day of rest due to the off-day Tuesday. To compensate, Scott Kazmir will pitch ahead of Edwin Jackson on Sunday, with Jackson going Monday against the Rangers.
• Jorge Cantu’s agent reiterated that the former team MVP has not changed his position and he still wants to be traded.
• Expect the Rays to be even more aggressive on the base paths this season, with as many as four players swiping 25 or more bases. The Rays had three on opening day.
• According to Buster Olney, manager Joe Maddon is giving a Bob Gibson tape to Edwin Jackson, hoping that it will light a competitive fire in the young prospect.
• The state house might have just helped the Rays sign a new middle reliever, by granting the team a $2 million per year tax break.
• Here is your chance to vote for Devil Rays to make it to Cooperstown. Might be their only chance.