These are the uniforms the Rays will wear on Memorial Day.
The GBT - The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
Rangers 5, RAYS 4 (boxscore)
THE GOOD: Another huge night for the bullpen who single-handedly (or is it triple-handedly?) kept the Rays in the game. Erasmo Ramirez was the big gun, giving Kevin Cash 3.2 innings of shutout baseball with 4 strikeouts and no walks. Two other combined with Ramirez to throw 5.2 shutout innings, allowing just 4 baserunners and allowing the Rays to turn a 5-0 deficit into a 5-4 game late.
THE BAD: Attendance for Thursday night’s game was 8,701. The Rays had a lot of things going against them. It was a week night. School is still in session. It was the Rangers, who never draw well at the Trop. And the Lightning were playing a home playoff game. Still, this wasn’t the first of any of those things and yet, this was the smallest crowd at the Trop for a Rays game since May, 2007 when the team was known as the Devil Rays and just 8,440 attended a game against the Mariners. The only other “home” games with less than 9,000 since then came in 2008 when the Rays played a series at Disney in Orlando…I don’t want to come down too hard on Chris Archer. After all, he struck out 8 in just 3.1 inning and 4 of the runs he gave up came after he seemingly got the 3rd out in the second inning but the inning was kept alive because the batter reached first on a dropped wild pitch third strike. But at the same time, those things happen and a pitcher has to get the next batter. In this case, Archer walked the next 2 batters and then gave up a single. And that wasn’t the only time Archer seemed to lose focus. There was more than one occasion when he had a batter in an 0-2 hole only to let the batter get back to 3-2. Not only does that give the advantage back to the hitter it also kills your pitch count.
THE TELLING: Evan Longoria did not play (a flu is making the rounds in the clubhouse) ending his MLB-high streaks of 180 games started and 270 games played…The Rays are 15-14, 3.0 games behind the Yankees.
THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- It sure sounds like Tommy John surgery is inevitable for Alex Cobb. [TampaBay.com]
- “Chris Archer is interesting on and off the mound.” [ESPN.com]
- DOWN ON THE FARM [boxscores] Everett Teaford gave up 2 runs over 5 innings in Durham’s 4-2 win. Hak-Ku Lee went 3-4 and Mike Mahtook was 0-2…Montgomery erased a 7-6 deficit in the 9th inning, winning with a walk-off single by Cameron Seitzer. Richie Shaffer hit his 6th home run and Daniel Robertson went 0-5…Willy Adames was 0-2 with 2 walks in Charlotte’s 3-2 win…In Bowling Green’s 3-2 loss Nick Ciuffo was 2-4 and Justin Williams went 1-4.
Here is the Evan Longoria bobblehead to be given away at an upcoming game. The bobblehead plays Longo’s walk-up song. On a side-note, I always find it weird how much the Longo bobbles exaggerate the gap in his teeth. I know he has one, but it is not like he is Michael Strahan.
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16 Comments
It's too bad Archer didn't pitch this game on normal rest. Much different outcome if so...
I know, right? I mean, I was so wrong when I said Archer would never have a bad start on normal rest (Oh wait, I never said that). And I can't believe I trusted all that data that says pitchers typically perform better on normal rest. In hindsight, I should have known that data was probably fabricated by the same people who pulled off 9-11.
That's two clunkers in a row and 3 on the year versus 4 spectacular starts. He's obviously got great stuff, but maybe maybe he lacks focus sometimes regardless of how much rest he gets.Hopefully that will come with maturity - he's still pretty emotional out there.
You bitch about the short rest stuff all season and now you whine when other people talk about it?
"all season" LOL
LOL is right. It actually started before the season began and continued until Archer wasn't named pitcher of the month. "All season" is selling you short. But I'll give you that you didn't bring it up after Archer's 2nd start against the Orioles. The one on normal rest. The one that was worse than the short rest start against the Orioles. You didn't even bother to write about that start. The only start this year by anyone that you haven't written at least something about. Weird. It's almost like it's not a coincidence.
No. It's LOL, because since Opening Day I have written exactly 80 words on the topic out of 1000s of words on this site. And out of those 80 words, about half of them were sarcasm because I enjoyed seeing you guys get so worked up about it. Oh by the way, 80 words is also 13 words LESS than the comment you just wrote.
LOL indeed.
P.S. As for the last part of your comment. Since you were paying such close attention, you must have noticed that the start was on a Saturday and there are no Hangovers on Sunday. I almost never specifically write about Saturday starts no matter who the pitcher is. It's almost like it is coincidence. Weird!
Yes, you've written many other words. Good for you Cork. Your "exactly 80 words" count is a little short since you wrote entire articles (multiple) on the subject before he ever made the start. But the point has always been that you keep bringing it up over and over again. You brought it up every time he pitched until he threw a bad game. Then you brought it up again when he didn't even pitch. You did it antagonistically, and you did it because you "enjoyed seeing us get so worked up about it". You were saying FU to a large portion of the people who post on your blog. Daily readers. Weird. It's almost like you're just being an asshole.
Hm... a critical comment I posted here seems to be missing. Interesting...
And he did all that on normal rest 😉
Sidenote: why is it that sportswriters, fans, box scores, etc. have adopted decimal notation to show thirds of an inning? The first column to the right of the decimal is the tenths place not the thirds place, so technically when a writer states that a pitcher lasted, for example, 7.2 innings, that's way off (7 and 2/10 is a lot less than 7 and 2/3).
Everyone does it, and it's common knowledge what is meant by it, but that doesn't make it right... makes me crazy-- but that's probably just me being a 4th grade teacher.
I was switching back and forth between the Lightning and Rays (what a bummer of a sports night in TB) and didn't see the aforementioned strikeout that allowed the batter to reach first. The boxscore says it was a WP, but you mentioned it was dropped. Was it something in between that could have been ruled either way? If it were dropped (PB), that would have made some of the runs unearned, right?
I probably shouldn't written "dropped." That's just the standard phrasing when a batter reaches first on a play like that because typically it is at least a good pitch. in this case, the ball actually hit the plate, maybe even a little in front. definitely a wild pitch.
Archer just lost his mechanics. Long season.
Why is Cobb being projected as a September 2016 return when TJ surgery is usually 12 months? Moore had his last May and he is supposed to be back June, even with conservative Rays protocol.
The typical recovery period from Tommy John is not 12 months. Moore underwent Tommy John surgery on April 22nd, 2014, his recovery has been setback free and gone about as smoothly as it can possibly go, his target of a mid-to-late June return is considered ahead of schedule, and even if he meets that, it will still have been 14 months after surgery that he pitches in his first major league game. If Cobb's recovery goes as well as Moore's has, it's possible we see him shortly after the all-star break next year, but there's no guarantee it will. It's also possible we don't see him at all next year. But I'm much more concerned about Smyly. Tommy John would have been preferable to a torn labrum. If he comes back, it'll probably be after Cobb, and he probably won't be the same pitcher. Success rate for coming back from torn labrum surgery is not nearly as high as Tommy John.
Archer is a pile of shit some nights. The Rays are not going to be able to do anything if they are relying on him to be at all consistent.
Actually, a pretty shitty team all around.
What are you, David, other than a foul mouth fool?