The GBT - The Good, The Bad and The Telling sandwich, where The Bad is nice and lean and the The Telling is ripe.
RAYS 3, A’s 0 (boxscore)
THE GOOD: Alex Colome lasted just 5 innings but he held the A’s scoreless on 4 hits and a walk. It wasn’t easy. Twice he had runners in scoring position, including a leadoff triple in the 1st inning and bases loaded in the 4th inning. But each time he was able to get out of it…Another solid performance from the bullpen as 4 pitchers combined to throw 4 shutout innings with 6 strikeouts and 1 walk, anchored by not-a-closer Brad Boxberger who picked up his 12th save. The bullpen now has a 1.84 ERA since April 19…David DeJesus provided all the offense the Rays would need with an RBI double in the 4th to get the scoring started and a solo home run in the 7th to make it 2-0. He is now 20-48 (.417) with 4 doubles and 3 home runs over his last 15 games.
THE BAD: Alex Colome will put you to sleep. He was pulled after 5 innings with just 86 pitches and I wonder if it was just because Kevin Cash was tired of all the waiting in between pitches. Last night’s game took 3 hours even though there were only 3 runs, 13 hits, and 3 walks. A game like that should take 2.5 hours tops…Steven Souza struck out 4 times. He leads MLB with 62 strikeouts.
THE TELLING: Bobby Wilson threw out his first base stealer since April 11 and is now just 2-16 throwing out would-be thieves…Attendance for the game was 10,605. The Rays have used more players than any other team (40) and are 23-19 and sit alone in first place, a half-game ahead of the Yankees.
THE JUNKYARD DOGS WEBTOPIA…
- Drew Smyly needs 8 weeks of rehab and could return in late July. [TampaBay.com]
- Florida high schools dominated the NFL Draft. [BI Sports]
- DOWN ON THE FARM [boxscores] Durham lost 4-3 in 10 innings with Dylan Floro tossing 6.2 scoreless innings, striking out 5, walking none, and giving up just 2 hits. Eugenio Velez drove in all 3 runs with a pair of doubles…Montgomery won 4-3. Bradin Hagens allowed just 1 run on 3 hits in 7 innings. Boog Powell drove in 2 with a single and a triple…Jacob Faria allowed just 1 run in Charlotte’s 2-1 win over the Tampa Yankees…Jace Conrad hit his 7th home run in Bowling Green’s 14-inning 6-3 loss.
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hoping Drew Smyly will be as close to as good as he was before the injury....
Even some work in long relief and some spot starts might help him be ready for next year. Hopefully he made the right decision about the surgery.
Souza is striking out 44% of the time.
Wil Myers is on the DL
Souza really looks like he is unsure of the strike zone right now and pressing so hard, that he's frozen himself up there. Just swing the bat and hope you run into it, or you are going to set the single season Golden Sombrero record.
Well, at least he has a really great hitting coach to help develop his swing...
Maybe there should be a special coach that teams could hire to help players who are struggling to hit. Maybe the Rays could hire someone to pioneer such a position. We could call it a hitting coach and it could be a former player that actually had a history of hitting the ball at the major league level. Just a thought....
Everyone agrees that Hickey is a great pitching coach, right? That he somehow seems to improve the pitchers when they get here. Why do so many people make the argument that a hitting coach has no influence on his players then? Pitching coaches make a difference, but hitting coaches don't?
By the way, that wasn't in response to anything you said - I have just been wonder that for a while now and thought I'd bring it up in this thread.
DeJesus is the player that Andrew Friedman apparently always dreamed he could/would be. A nice pro out there, hitting the ball where it is pitched.
Small sample size, I realize, but Nick Franklin's defense in spring and so far this regular season is unimpressive. He better have some kind of pop in the bat.
That ball came at him at about 100 mph and took a short hop that ate him up... very difficult play. The only thing he might have done better would be to square up a little more, but I just don't think there was time.
not just last night -- that was a hard hit ball, but a play many good SS make; he has been shaky every time I've seen him; there was a spring game against Philly where he was just awful at 2b. For a kid who is supposedly a baseball rat, I guess I expected better glove work.
When it comes to pace of play I am only concerned with the slow pace of the other team......
Last night the bad was the A's. They basically shut themselves out. They are collectively in a deep dark bad place right now, winning only 2 of 15 games.
Hopefully the funk lasts 3 more games.
Kaz returning to the Trop tonite will be a great sight to see. He should get a nice ovation. In 2012 he was pitching for the independent league Sugarland Skeeters and Vogt was going for his 0 for the entire season with the Rays.
Who at that time would have thought that battery would ever appear at the Trop?