HER RAYS!

Disclaimer – You know I love this team but sometimes tough love is better medicine, especially when they are playing like dog doo.

John Jaso JingleHeimer Schmidt – I like you lots.  I suggested that you should run for president.  Tonight you drove in the lone run, and you’ve been doing pretty well overall.  However tomorrow you will be practicing your Lord of the Dance moves for many hours.  That way you will be able to avoid line drives at your feet.  Oh and for the record I don’t like you in the lead-off spot.

Evan Longoria - You are awesome.  You are an all-star.  Please for the love of Pete do not start slumping now when nobody on this freaking team can hit.  If you keep this up I will have to make comments about your not so stellar hair.

Mr. Pena - Your defense is superb.  However first basemen are also supposed to hit the ball. 

Sean Rodriguez – It’s time I told you that you annoy me on many levels.  First I hate how you roam so far into the outfield on fly balls that are clearly the outfielder’s ball.  Second, many people commend you on being so aggressive on the base paths.  I find you aggressive to a fault though, and tonight was a good example of this.  You almost got doubled off, and then you were thrown out by a MILE in the bottom of the ninth when your team was only down by one run.  Ugh.  I do realize that there are worse things than being too aggressive, but remember I’m extra cranky tonight.

Beej – see Carlos Pena.  Your amazing defense is keeping you in the line-up.  However against logic I think you should be batting first.  I think you do better there, and if you do get on base then the fun starts.  I love the thought of you and CC on base together.  Make it happen would ya.

Navi – You are the third player mentioned that is in the line-up for their defense.  How long do you think that is going to last? 

All in all the Rays need to do better, much better.  I really like Wade Davis but five walks and 103 pitches in 4.1 innings is not going to cut it.  Hellickson was selected for the Futures game, but the future is now.  He should get a shot.

Although it’s not going to matter how well the Rays pitch if their offense can’t score more than one run!  Yes they have faced some tough pitching, but they look down right awful at the plate.  Like everyone says it’s time for a roster move.  Joyce to the rescue.

Since I’m cranky I’ll make my only comment on the stadium issue.  If you’ve been to the Trop, you know that it’s not a bad place to watch a game.  However if you’ve been to any of the new parks, you know there are much better places to watch a game.  How great would it be for the players of our beloved team to have a new park to play in.  I really don’t care where they build it as long as it’s in Tampa Bay.  If the high speed train from Orlando to Tampa becomes a reality it seems that downtown Tampa would be a great spot.  People travelling to Orlando for vacation could include a trip to watch their team play ball.  I’m not sure my opinion matters on this subject though, since if they keep the team somewhere in Tampa Bay I will still go to my handful of games in a season.

They say it’s not good to go to bed angry so I will finish with a positive note.  Congratulations to Dewayne Staats on his 5000th broadcast.  I’d like to thank him for his dedication.  Just think I grew up listening to Ernie Harwell and my kids will grow up listening to Mr. Staats.  He is the voice of the Rays, and he’s a great one.

Let’s hope the Rays give us something to feel better about tomorrow.  Go Rays!

Some would say the Rays suffered from an intensity let down.  Some would say there were a few too many cocky fans that thought a win was a certainty against the Astros.  Some would say the boys were tired from the quick turnaround.  What would I say?  Eh, you can’t win them all.  Although the Rays had every chance to win this one.

Garza didn’t have his best stuff, but this girl noticed that he was workin hard.  He saved the pen and battled through eight innings giving up only two runs.  If your offense can’t score two runs then you are in trouble son.  Matt did have a little league moment though where he couldn’t pitch strikes to the pitcher because he was showing bunt.  Like a youngster he got frustrated and ended up hitting him.  Kinda funny until a run scored later in the inning.

It was rather funny watching Mr. Garza bat.  It’s one of my favorite things in baseball.  Watching pitchers who rarely hit step in the box.  Now maybe Matt can imagine what it’s like for someone to see his pitches coming.  He did get a sac bunt down though.  It almost makes up for the pitch that he bailed on that turned out to be a strike.  Yep, I love him but I laughed at him.

What can I say about the offense?  Well Benny Z and Brignac hit well on the night.  Other than that the story is about LOBs.  The Rays left a family reunion on the bases.  What happened to get the mofo in?!

Why oh why was Zobrist stealing third with no outs???  It’s a puzzler.

There were many chances to win the game, but alas it didn’t happen.  Let’s hope Niemann can get them back on track tonight.  Oh and he will be most excellent to watch step up to the plate!  Interleague is fun, and I haven’t mentioned it yet but Brian Anderson makes me laugh.  Did you catch him giving Staats crap about calling Lee slow.  Good times.  Go Rays!

dammit.

 What the heck kind of Mother’s day present is this?  The day was going along fine.  I was excited to finally be able to watch the Rays play a whole game.  That excitement didn’t last long.  Suck-n-A!

Every single dude in the line-up went 0 for 3, which made Dallas Braden perfect.  It also made the Rays the opposite of perfect for the second time in less than a year.

I’ll admit it.  When Buehrle threw the perfect game I was rooting for him at the end.  Uh, not this time.  This time the frustration level was quite high.  First of all, is it just me or does this Braden guy kind of seem like a knob?  Second, no one wants this to happen to their team twice!  Dreadful.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t in the booth today with Staats and Kennedy.  It would not have been pretty since I started to get moody around the fourth inning.  There were many comments like these…
“Yeah, make sure you watch the pitches that go right down the middle”
“Righties, you could stop chasing the one low and away any time now.”
“Could we get a pinch hitter?”
“Anyone?  So the idea is let these nine guys sink or swim?”
“No plans to shake it up?”
“Cool Sonny’s in.  Can he hit?”
“We’re going with THAT catcher in the ninth of a perfect game? (insert many four letter words here)”

The Rays are still off to a great start this season, but man this was crushing.  I really hope they can quickly move past it.  Mr. Garza needs to lift these guys up tomorrow. 

The baseball gods have dealt Rays fans quite a blow today.  Hopefully the Red Sox can find a way to beat the Yankees.  Oh and hopefully we can be on the other end of one of these perfect game/no hitters someday.

It would be nifty if all that pink stuff made a lot of money for charity, because MOTHER scratcher that was an awful way to spend mothers day!

I’ve been pretty busy the last couple of days, so I haven’t been able to sit down and really take in the games.  However I have been doing some drive by baseball viewing.  You know, where you have the game on in the background.  You peek at it every time you walk through the room.  You run in when you hear the crowd cheer or you hear Staats raise his voice.

I feel a little guilty when I don’t give the Rays my full attention but in my defense they are playing the A’s.  The A’s are blah.  I don’t hate them, but I don’t like them either.  I really dislike their uniforms, especially the shoes.  White shoes might look okay with their home white pants, but on the road with gray pants and green socks?  Yuck.  It was nice to see Gabe Gross, and Ryan Sweeney is super cute, but I didn’t know any of the other guys.

How ’bout them Rays?  They just keep rolling along.  The starting pitching has been good and when they make a mistake the offense is there to pick them up.  They even gave James Shields run support.  It’s been a really fun way to start the season.  I’m like the drunk guy at a party going around hugging everyone and slurring “I love you guys.”

See you tomorrow night.  Go Rays!

This game was frustrating because the Rays really seemed to outplay the A’s.  It just felt like they would put that run up there first.  Let’s play the blame game.

James Shields pitched a helluva game, but his offense couldn’t help him out.  They deserve the lions share of the blame.  They had a runner on third in three separate innings with only one out, but there was not one single measly ground ball or sac fly in sight.  The 3 and 4 hitters put up zeros.

Jason Bartlett had a very untimely error in the 11th.  I blame this on Staats and Kennedy for going on and on about how great he is.  Yes he has been supremely awesome this year, but let him quietly go about his business.  Just because I write poems about him…

I guess Nelson deserves a little bit of the blame since he threw the meatball that Holliday put in the seats.

I would also like to give a big fat slice of blame to Joe Maddon.  What possessed him to bring in Navi?  That was the turning point in the game.  Gross struck out, and then all of a sudden Shields couldn’t find the strike-zone.  I understand that those things could have happened with Herny in the game but…I think he messed up the flow you know.

Oh JP and Willy don’t deserve any blame.  JP shut them down, and Willy is really looking good.  The Rays need to find him a starting job.  Oh, and I’ll take Zobrist over Kapler any day of the week. 

Tough loss but they aren’t going to win every game and there are quite a few more.  Go Rays!

That was for sure the strangest game of the season.  First it starts off with a line-up problem.  A problem that nobody clued the viewer in on.  So we watched people walk around and huddle up.  All while Staats and Kennedy speculate on what’s going on.  Their first instinct was the Indians pitcher was wrong in the lineup.  Frankly I wanted him to pitch.  He is cute and it was his first game back after being broken.

Alas the problem was actually with the Rays line-up.  They had two third baseman.  The Indians wisely questioned the line-up after Zobrist played the top of the first at third base.  Longo was supposed to DH, but because of the clerical error Sonnanstine would now be batting third.  Longo would be able to come in later.  Total entertainment.

Mr. Maddon this was the baseball gods trying to tell you something.  Longoria should be playing third base.  He does not need a day off.  He is twenty three years old and he’s a stud.  You’re pretty lucky this didn’t bite you in the ass.

He is also very lucky that Sonny is the best hitter in the starting rotation.  This would not have been cool if Niemann was pitching.  Okay it might have worth a couple of laughs.  Sonny stroked an RBI double.  Nothing better than pitchers hitting.  I hope no NL teams were watching they might find Sonny quite attractive.  In a different way than us female fans of course.

I have one serious question from this afternoon though.  If the Indians Francisco consistently pounds Sonny why didn’t they just walk him after Sonny got behind in the count???

Hernia had another big double driving in some runs.  I wonder if Navi’s jealous?

Barty is still hot, in every sense of the word.

CC made a miraculous catch at the wall.  He didn’t really catch it but…  That was a sucky call for the Indians and they were very frustrated.  Rays fans probably understand that as much as anyone.

Just when things were getting dull, the Tribe tries to hit BJ.  Twice.  Then since there was no warning issued Maddon made his displeasure known.  That’s when Victor Martinez started shooting his mouth off again.  Well Carl Crawford wasn’t having any of that so he flew out of the dugout and chaos ensued.

Erik at DRaysbay makes an excellent point.  It’s starting to feel a lot like 2008.  The walk-offs and the fist fights warm our hearts.

Now if someone could please take down those Blue Jays.

Huh?  They lost.

The Rays won the series, but lost the final game tonight.  LA 5 – Tampa 4.  A lot of blame could be thrown around, but basically the Rays didn’t play a very clean game so they got beat.

They seemed to have the momentum going their way after they tied it up in the 8th.  I would have loved to have seen Rocco in to pinch hit there for Zobrist.  Then again I’d always love to see Rocco over Benny so I’m not very objective.  The crowd would have went nuts, but who knows how Rocco is really feeling.

Balfour came out after pitching a great 8th, to start the 9th.  I’m sure this is because the game was tied, but I honestly don’t think he expected to go back out.  I might be suffering from sleep deprivation but I think I saw him in the dugout in his sweatshirt just chillin with the guys.  Doesn’t matter, but he did give up a lead-off walk.

Then Ruggiano missed a fly ball.  Staats and Kalas seem to think he lost it in the lights.  I think he made a bad decision and decided to let it drop instead of going for it.  We all make bad decisions, but that one really blew.  What would an announcer say?  It changed the whole complexion of the game.

Funny how we can’t accept the losing now isn’t it.  Let’s hope the Rays can get back to their winning ways in Chicago.  Go Rays!!

Staats and Magrane storm forecasters on sucky pitcher night.

It was the top of the 4th when the Rays announcers predicted a storm and warned the fans.  Even though it was Sonny, baseballs were being left up in the zone.  They warned us that technically the A’s weren’t power surges, but if something didn’t change, severe weather was ahead.  Sure enough a couple of pitches later the storm hit, in the form of a three run home-run.  Take cover.

Sonny pitched seven innings and gave up three runs.  Rays fans accept that, knowing it could have been much worse.  If the offense would stop sprinkling the hits and put more of them together, three runs is chump change.  Then Maddon decides to make it sucky pitcher night.  Has anyone else ever noticed that he does this?  The non-sucky pitchers like Howell, Balfour and sometime Percival seemed to be grouped together.  Maddon used them when he wants to shut down his opponents.  But tonight his thinking was more like this…

Sonnanstine 7IP, 5H, 3ER  3-1 A’s.
Okay great, Sonny made it through seven.  We’re down by two.  I usually only go with the non-sucky pitchers when we have a lead or a tie.  Let’s throw a sucky guy in there and see how he does.  Miller’s been real sucky lately, maybe he’ll try to prove his worth.

Miller walks the first batter of the 8th. 
Shit, he walked the guy.  Next batter is a righty.  Hmmm.  Let’s leave him in.  He has to get better at some point.

Wild pitch, runner moseys on into scoring position.
That was unfortunate.

Suzuki doubles, runner scores.  4-1 A’s
(slapping forehead)When will I ever learn.  He is super sucky against right handers.

Miller walks the next batter.
Wow, he’s got issues.  Now we’re down by even more, with runners on.  Time to take a stroll to the mound.  I’m not wasting one of my non sucky guys.  Bring in Reyes.

The next batter fouls out to Navarro.
Excellent an out.  Seems like it’s been a while.  Maybe I’ll have some time for wine tonight after all.

Reyes walks the next batter to load the bases.
Eureka, the sucky guys are really suckin tonight.  They’re like Hoovers.

The next batter hits a sac fly and the runner scores.  5-1 A’s.
Well at least there are two outs now.  Let’s see if he can get the third.

The next batter singles scoring a run, and Zobrist can’t catch(but the error goes to CC?) so another run scores.  7-1 A’s.
You got yourself into this mess, you get yourself out!

Reyes gets a strike out to end the inning.
About frickin time.

Top of the 9th, 7-1 A’s.
Perfect time to give Hammel some playing time.

Zobrist biffs two balls hit to short, resulting in a run scoring.
Note to self:  add Zobrist to the sucky list.

Go Rays!!

When I left the Rays had a five game lead in the AL East.  Good times indeed.  They finished their sweep of the Red Sox when I was on the road.  It was okay being disconnected from Rays universe, since I woke up to the news that the Rays were still winning.  They took three of four from Kansas City.  Perfectly acceptable.

Just as I was starting to miss my computer, Staats and Magrane, and even Todd Kalas the Rays lost two to the Yankees.  It’s okay, I was surrounded by beer and Tigers fans.  So naturally I chose the beer. 

That’s when the down-slide started.  I was in the hills of North Carolina.  Totally disconnected.  My cell phone didn’t even work.  Nascar country and my Sprint phone didn’t have service!  This was probably good for me, but…whatever.

As I was comin down the mountain, I heard the news.  The Indians swept the Rays.  The Indians who had lost ten in a row?  So annoying.  To be honest everything was annoying me.  One guy called me a bandwagon fan since I was wearing my Longo shirt.  He said maybe if I was wearing a Devil Rays shirt it wouldn’t be so obvious.  This just irked me.  He’s right I’ve only been a Rays fan for half of their existence, but they aren’t that old!  And even die hard fans wear the new gear!  And at least I live there!  They rag on Rays fans for not filling the stadium, and then they call them bandwagon fans when they do show up.  Infuriating!

Then there’s this talk that Rays fans are all arrogant.  Every fan base has it’s jerk-offs, that doesn’t mean it’s the standard.  Most of the Rays fans I know can’t believe how much fun this season is, and are cautiously optimistic.  Funny how most of these comments come from Yankees and Red Sox fans.  Oh, and they can keep their Sweet Caroline.  Last time I checked the fans don’t decide what songs are played at the Trop.  I would have went with the old stand by “na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey Goodbye!”

Before I got home, I needed to get some groceries since the cupboards were bare.  That was just the cherry on top of my day.  As I was shopping two people in Red Sox gear passed each other and cheered “We’re in first place again!”  I gave them the evil eye, but they didn’t melt like I planned.  It took all of my strength not to scream at them. “Get out of my store!  Get out of my town!”  Instead I just threw more cookies in my cart.  Now it will be the Red Sox fault when I get fat.

Back in the car something dawned on me.  You know why I was so crabby?  Because I cared.  Because the Rays are a good enough team to make the playoffs this year, let alone next year.  For Rays fans the goal has changed.  We don’t just want a .500 season, we want the whole enchilada, and this team can do it.

So this blogger and the Rays are finally home desperately needing to regroup.  We knew the Rays would have a slump at some point, I’d say right before the All-star break is a good time to do it.  Now they can rest and get back to winning series again.

Let’s have some fun the next couple of days, with the home-run derby and the all-star game.  I’m a little nervous about Longo, but he’s young and what an experience that will be for him.  Plus this year I’ll have someone to root for.  As for the all-star game a win could come in handy when the Rays make it to the world series. :)

Great to be home!  Go Rays!!

Viewer Dissatisfaction

Good thing the Rays won tonight cause otherwise there would be one irate little chicky in the house.  I didn’t get home until about a half an hour after the game started.  I ran in to turn on the game.  If we’re being honest, I thought there was a good chance that in 30 minutes Sonny could already have been getting schlacked.  So I turn on ION, which had MLB listed from 7-10pm.  However on my TV is some dude playing the violin on the beach.  Not exactly what I’m looking for.  Ever.

I quick flip over to FSN, not there.  Then I think, maybe ESPN isn’t blacked out, that would be so sweet, but NO.  Yeah at this point I’m throwing my hands up in the air, and a WTF might have escaped my lips.  I’m human, especially when I can’t get my Rays fix.

On occasion I can be resourceful and I knew just where to find the answer.  DRaysBay.  Sure enough, in the comments someone was having the same problem as me, and the solution was also provided.  Thanks boys, I never would have thought to check WGN (the Chicago network I for some reason get).

For the record I love both Rays Index and DRaysBay, but I knew the Professor was probably all comfy in his recliner with his dog at his feet and an ice cold beverage next to him watching the Rays on ESPN in awesome HD.  He was going to be no help in this situation.

Watching a Rays game on the Cubs network sucks.  I missed Staats and Magrane.  I know some people would be amazed to hear that, but aside from some national guys, I don’t want to hear anyone else.  I didn’t care for the Chicago guys.  At one point they were making really lame jokes about the Rays tank in centerfield.  The only time they got a chuckle out of me was when they said it would be cool if Wheeler’s number was 18, and that’s just because I appreciate stupid humor.

Also on Rays TV they try to show the Rays fans in the crowd.  On WGN it was painful, because I think they showed every single Cubs fan there.

Boring story short, I got to watch the game.  The Rays won again.  They beat the team with the best record in baseball.  Twice.  Sonny vs. Zambrano.  Unbelievable.  Final score Chicago 4 – Tampa 5.

Let’s hope they can keep it up, and I can watch the game in my comfort zone tomorrow.  Go Rays!!

PS.  Hope no one recorded ION for three hours only to come home and find no baseball.  That’s enough to irk ya!