Tampa Bay Rays

After another scary roller coaster ride on Wall Street last week, we at least have the weekend and sports to bring back some sanity to our life. Unless of course your motto is "Go Blue" and you hail from the great state of Northern Ohio or as most of you know it, Michigan.  Who says there's no such thing as karma?

Continue reading "Another Sunday Morning"

Who is going to win the World Series, the Phillies or the Rays?  The best thing about this series is that I can be fairly neutral as to who wins and just root for some good ole' fashioned baseball.

Continue reading "Game One"

ason was just getting it’s feet under them.  One of the early surprising stories was the Tampa Bay Rays, taking command of the American League East. That would be the American League East with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.  The best two teams money can buy, well at least most of the time.  The year before, the Rays lost 97 games with a team of young, inexperienced players.  Giant fans please pay attention.  Behind the leadership of Joe Madden, the Rays seemed to have reached the Promised Land.  Then Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett were acquired midseason from the Twins.  The Rays held on and won the American League East Title. Next they beat the Chicago White Sox in Round One of the American League Playoffs.  Up next was the mighty Red Sox, who after falling behind 3 games to 1 and on the brink of extinction pulled off an improbably and precedent setting comeback.  Momentum seemed to have switched in favor of Beantown.  On Saturday night, Josh Beckett led the Red Sox to a win to even the series.  It set up a match of young flamethrowers, Garza vs Jon Lester.  Both pitchers threw well, but in the year of the Wonderdogs, is it any surprise that for seven innings, Garza, the former Fresno State Bulldog, would be almost perfect as the Rays took a 3-1 decision and earned a trip to the World Series.

Continue reading "Year of the Underdog"

As a baseball fanatic, how refreshing is it that on an NFL sunday, baseball is center stage as the Boston Red Sox attempt to complete an amazing return from the dead, again.  The team with a history of choking is now on the edge of becoming one of the greatest comeback teams in history.

Continue reading "Sunday Morning"

For the last few day the Red Sox looked like a mirror image of the Dodgers.  Dying and quickly being pushed out of post season play.  A finally, a kid from Woodland, Ca battles his way to a two out RBI single and the Red Sox wake up.  Ortiz temporarly breaks out of his slump at the right moment and breathes life back into Red Sox nation.  JD Drew has found a home in Boston and calmly belted one over the right field fence to get the Sox back to within one run.  Drew looked very comfortable at the plate while working Howell to a 3-1 count.  You knew he was going to hit the ball hard somewhere. And he did and Boston will go back to Tampa.

Continue reading "Wow"

Jolly good to see you! My name is Daniel, and thank you for viewing my page. I'm pretty new to this blogging stuff, but i'm to give ol' Clayface a new body. <_< Anyway, Expect an analys

Continue reading "Hello!"

Entrance into the Hall of Fame is the highest individual honour that baseball has to offer. Getting into Cooperstown means that without a doubt you are one of the greatest players of your generation and have earned the right for children to stare at your plaque as parents tell tall-tales of your abilities for years to come.

Continue reading "What makes someone a hall of famer?"

Even if it ended badly for the Mariners, and for Willie Bloomquist in particular, last night's game against first-place Tampa Bay showed that the Mariners still have some fight in them. Though they blew a four-run lead on errors by Jose Lopez and failed to drive home a run in what should have been an easy game-winning situation, Seattle provided some excitement and refused to give up, even with an utterly depleted bench that had them giving up the DH in order to have enough position players. And we got another glimpse of the Mariners' future, at least on the mound.

Continue reading "Rollicking Ride Against the Rays"

out of three from the Twins and four out of their last five before an exciting heartbreaker to the Tampa Bay Rays last night. Though we dropped the game 5-3, Wladimir Balentien uncorked a two-run bomb, showing the Ms that they were wise to bring him up and dump the punchless Jose Vidro.

Continue reading "Washburn is ready to move"

Offensively and defensively, the Yankees have been missing the services of Hideki Matsui since June 27, and Jorge Posada on and off for even longer. Matsui is an integral RBI guy to give ARod and Giambi protection in the five or six hole, and is needed more than ever in left with Johnny Damon's shoulder issues. Posada can hit pretty well, but can't throw, so even when he was in the game, other teams ran rampant--Jose Molina and Chad Moeller are decent defensive replacements, but can't match Jorge's bat.

Continue reading "Two Yankees, Toughing it Out"

A few relatively minor items to cover with the moves made by a few teams recently. What might they mean in the second half? I’ll try and puzzle this out.

Tony Clark, who experienced a career resurgence the day he put on an Arizona Diamondbacks uniform back in 2005, hs returned to the cozy confines of Chase Field. Petco, where hitting a homer is as hard as hitting the lottery, wasn’t as kind to the aging Clark as Chase has been, so he’ll certainly improve on his 2008 line of .239/.374/.307. His 32:19 K:BB ratio, as well as hs 165-point difference between BA and OBP, will tell you his batting eye is fine, and some power should follow.

Continue reading "Roster Tinkering: What's it Mean?"

One of the All-Star Break traditions: Reassessing our predictions from the first half of the season. Some of mine have changed, some have stayed the same—and some were just damn wrong. Living in the West, I will take the contrarian position and roll from west to east in my choices.

Continue reading "Second Half Predictions"

It’s the All-Star Break once again, that mythical halfway point in the season (I say “mythical” because most teams have played 95-96 games, more than the 81 that’s the true midway mark). Traditionally, it’s time for the teams to take a breath, collect themselves and iron out any kinks in their batting stroke or the pitching rotation—several starters made relief appearances or threw out of turn in the past game or two, knowing that three or four days of rest was coming for all of them.

Continue reading "Gimme A Break!"

All right. Are you ready for this? As the All-Star break approaches, the Tampa Bay Rays have the best record in baseball. That’s right. At 49-32, they’re a half-game ahead of Boston, the Cubs, and Anaheim. Whoa. Is this one of the signs of the apocalypse?

Continue reading "Hold On To Your Hats"

I've been a Yankees fan since the early nineties, pre-Showalter, pre-Torre, pre-post-seventies-World-Series-victories days, and it seems to me they're as vulnerable as they've ever been. I like Girardi, I like the New Steinbrenner regime that doesn't look to scour out every single prospect for the possibility of Winning Right Now--but I think they are (dare I say?) approaching those dreaded Rebuilding Years.

Continue reading "Rebuilding the Yankees--A Good Thing?"

t get Santana and expect them to be major players for pitching at the trade deadline this season.

Tampa Bay Rays

What can the Rays expect from Evan Lognoria this season?

For now nothing as Longoria is starting the season at Triple A. That won’t last long however, as Longoria had an excellent spring and the only reason he was sent to the minors seems to be to push back his free agent clock another year. The extra time in the minors certainly can’t hurt him and will at least keep him from scuffling through some likely cold weather early April games.

Continue reading "MLB 2008 Season Preview: American Leauge East"

The New York Yankees try to carry themselves with the belief that they are the classiest team in baseball. Earlier this week manager Joe Girardi took a stance that was not supported by many others in baseball when he harshly criticized a home plate collision in a game earlier this week, calling it dirty and something that you don’t do in Spring Training. If a young player trying to get noticed by his manager his coming into home and the plate is completely blocked, he has every right to barrel over the catcher. If Girardi doesn’t want such a thing to happen, he should tell his catcher not to block the plate in Spring Training. Nonetheless, I can understand Yankees pitcher Heath Phillips throwing at Evan Longoria in retaliation the next time the two teams met, that at least sends a statement to your teammates that you’ve got their backs. However, when Shelley Duncan slid into second base with his spikes high, that is just plain dirty and something that is unacceptable at anytime in the season. The home plate collision was a young kid trying to make a play, done with no malicious intent. Sliding into a base with your spikes in the air can only be seen as trying to injure another player.

Continue reading "Yankees Playing Dirty . . . And Other ..."

Jays shut the door in the late innings.

The name might not be the only thing different about the Tampa Bay Rays this season, they might actually be a good team. They are young and will experience their share of growing pains, but one cannot doubt their talent and potential, headlined by Evan Longoria, Baseball America's number one prospect in the country. BJ Upton seems ready to emerge as the star he is projected to be now that he is settled into centerfield and Carl Crawford returns as one of the most exciting players in the game. Scott Kazmir and James Shields will anchor a young rotation and will be joined by former Twins prospect Matt Garza. Carlos Pena, Cliff Floyd and Troy Percival should provide veteran leadership to help this young team through the grind of the Major Leage season. The Rays won't contend for the division this year, but could finish around .500 and prove to be problematic for the teams at the top of the division. With more talent from the minors on the way, especially top pitching prospects Wade Davis and David Price, Tampa Bay might be able to contend with the big boys in a couple of years.

Continue reading "American League East is a Beast of a Division"

arks the start of the 2008 season where anything is can happen.  It is a season where even the Tampa Bay Rays can contend for fourth place.  It is a season where the impossible turns into the possible.  Just listen to Ryan Dempster of the Chicago Cubs make a bold prediction, “I think we are going to win the World Series. I really do.”  Great, just what a Cubs fans need to hear, another prediction. 

Continue reading "Is this the year of Dreams? Think ..."