Devil Rays 6, Red Sox 4.
The Devil Rays played yesterday? Unfortunate that the Rays pulled off their best performance in over a week, when the game was played at the same time as a Bucs home game in which the Bucs looked as good as they have since the 2003 season opener against the F’eagles*.
*We are of course dismissing every game since then against the Falcons and Michael Vick.
DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…
- On Saturday, the Rays hitters broke the AL record for strikeouts in a season. BJ Upton became the first member of the 20-20 club in franchise history. [USA Today]
- Apparently beating Tim Wakefield is a “sign of progress”. We believe being dominated by a knuckleballer is #4,376 on the list of reasons why the Rays are yet to experience success as a team. It comes in just ahead of “too many rainouts at the Trop” and just behind “Joe Maddon’s shoe size”. Believe us, we understand that finding an angle on a game with one week remaining in the last week of yet another 90+ loss season is a trying task at best. But Papa Joe…come back to us. please. [TBO]
- Carl Crawford did not play this weekend and with only one week remaining, he may not return this season. [tampabay.com]
“I’m not so sure right now he’s going to be able to do this,” Maddon said. “We’re hopeful for the first game back (Tuesday), but it just doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere we need it to go for him to participate right now. We’ll look at it again after the day off but I’m not anticipating he wil be able to play.”
- Joe Maddon makes a case for Delmon Young to be rookie of the year. [TBO]
“You put the whole picture together to tie this whole thing into a nice little bundle, and I think it equals Rookie of the Year,” Maddon said. “Everybody just wants to talk about offense – talk about his defense and his stolen bases this year. He’s playing a complete game for us right now.”
- Joe Maddon probably should have saved his “Delmon Young for tookie of the year” speech for the Yankees series as it likely fell on deaf ears with the Boston Media. The voting members of the Boston are likely to already have their vote cast for Dustin Pedroia. [courant.com]
- Marc Topkin interviews Joe Maddon. We love, love, love the last question “ Since the Rays won’t be in it this year, who do you think is going to win the World Series?”. ON the surface it seems a little ridiculous that Topkin would need to preface that question by informing the manager that his team has already been eliminated from playoff contention. But in Topkin’s defense. He is interviewing Papa Joe Maddon, the eternal optimist. [tampabay.com]
- Stacy Long offers his thoughts on the pitchers and hitters that should be named as the top minor leaugers for 2007. Not much to argue with. [Stacy Long’s Riverwalk Talk]
- The team decided to shut down James Shields for the remainder of the 2007 season, but will not do the same with Scott Kazmir, who will make his next scheduled start, stating that the lefty has looked fresher than Shields recently. [Devil Rays]
- We didn’t write it, but we were thinking it. This was one campaign that we are sure seemed much better on the drawing board. [The Serious Tip]
- Al Reyes hopes to have his option ($2 million) picked up for 2008. It should not even be a question. Reyes mentions that he would prefer to close but would be willing to be used as a setup man if that is what is asked of him. [TBO]
- Wes Bankston, who was designated for assignment last week, was claimed off of waivers by the Kansas City Royals. [The Raw Feed]
- Raymond and Wool E. Bull show their hip hop moves…If you are into that sort of thing. [Deadspin]
- With the Devil Rays becoming the Rays in 2008, devilrays.com will need to change their domain name. The obvious choice is rays.com but that will not happen as the owners of that domain name, Rays Boathouse in Seattle, is not selling. [Seattle Times]
My Blog 