Updating our Staff’s Run for 1K

I’m sure most of us remember Joe Maddon uttering this expectation:

“If there’s one kind of a goal, I’m not going to say it too often, but it’s to see this group get 1,000 innings,” Maddon said Tuesday. “That’s a nice,realistic goal just based on doing your work, your training, staying together with your weights, exercises, etc. If they can stay with that, these guys are capable of all that.”

Well with a little over a month to go, I thought it would be a good time to see how close we were to reaching this highly-placed bar.  First, here’s the chart:

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Evan Longoria’s Quest

Tags: Evan Longoria, Historical comparisons

Who Wants a BRayser?

The “BRayser” gained national attention two weeks ago when the Rays wore the unique blazers adorned in Tampa Bay Rays colors in a plaid design on their west coast road trip. After posting a picture of BJ in his BRayer on his twitter account he received many messages from followers asking where they could get their own “BRaysers” so BJ decided to raffle off his “BRayser” for a good cause.

BJ is raffling off his “BRayser” at his website www.theuptonbrothers.com and can be found at https://mcgraffle.com/upton/. Proceeds go to the Childs Park and Wildwood Recreation Centers located in South St. Petersburg to help support the families served by these centers. As part of the Dugout Club community initiative this summer, BJ adopted the two recreation centers and created ‘BJ’s Bunch’, a positive club for the kids.

Each chance to win costs $15 or get 3 chances for $40. Only 500 chances will be raffled off. This is the only “BRayser” available to the public and will be made available to the winner after the season. The winner will have the chance to have the “BRayser” autographed by BJ and if they are in the Tampa/St. Pete area will have the option of receiving the “BRayser” from BJ in person.

You can get updates on the raffle at www.theuptonbrothers.com or at BJ’s twitter account – www.twitter.com/therealbjupton . A Facebook Page is being created for BJ’s “BRayser” where you can get updates on the many uses of the “BRayser” and all the fun things you can do with it.

This Sums It Up for the Red Sox

They had to have this series, and they did not get it. I respect the hell out of what they’ve been able to do with as many guys as they’ve lost, but this series loss is going to be extremely hard for them to recover from. Not to mention, Adrian Beltre looks to be playing on one leg with that strained hamstring and could find himself on the disabled list.

Tags: Red Sox

How J.P. Howell Can Help This Season

J.P. Howell is out for the season as he recovers from shoulder surgery but he is still valuable to the Rays in 2010, at least in theory. Rays fans should recall that David Price made the 2008 post-season roster despite the fact he was called up to the big league club after September 1st. Normally, a player has to be on the 25 man roster before September 1st to be post-season eligible but there is a back-door process first made famous by the Anaheim Angels in 2002.

In 2001, Quebec native (you’re welcome, Jonah) Steve Green had one start for the Anaheim Angels in which he had a no-decision while working six innings walking six and striking out four. It was the last game Green would pitch for the Angels that season as he came down with a shoulder injury that required surgery, much like J.P. Howell’s situation. The Angels put Green on the 60-day disabled list on 4/6/02 which made him eligible for the 2002 post-season should the Angels get that far. They indeed did get to the post-season, but Green was nowhere near ready to pitch for them that September. Due to a variety of injuries, the Angels were forced to promote 20 year old Francisco Rodriguez from AAA on September 15th. The existing rules enabled the Angels to place Rodriguez on the post-season roster despite the late promotion because he was replacing Green, who was eligible for post-season play by simply being on the 25 man roster in 2002 albeit in an injured status. The rule states:

Many young players make their Major League debuts in this way, as ”September call-ups”. Players must be on a team’s 25-man roster as of August 31 to be eligible for post-season play. The only exception is that a player on the 60-day disabled list may be replaced by another player from the team’s 40-man roster (as of August 31) who plays the same position.

That means the club cannot use Howell’s roster spot to add recently acquired Brad Hawpe or to add another outfielder such as Desmond Jennings, Fernando Perez, or even Rocco Baldelli. Rays fans saw this benefit the club when Price was added to the playoff roster to replace Jae-Kuk Ryu who had faced all of five batters for the Rays in 2008 before going to the 60-day disabled list with an injury.

While J.P. Howell is still not on the 60-day disabled list, I suspect he will be placed on there before this coming Wednesday allowing the Rays to recall another pitcher who can help them should they reach the post-season. Simply put, J.P. Howell can contribute to the 2010 success of the Rays by allowing the club to add either Jeremy Hellickson or Jacob McGee to the post-season roster  despite the fact one of them will not be added to the club until after the September 1st deadline.  This same point was made quite well by R.J. Anderson over at The Process Report back on July 31st but I felt the need to post a reminder given the piece I read in this morning’s paper from Marc Topkin about the Rays’ options for September roster expansion where Topkin made a factual error in his last paragraph regarding how Howell’s roster spot can be utilized.

Tags: J.P. Howell, Jacob McGee, Jeremy Hellickson

Hey Boston, All Your Bases Are Belong to Dan Johnson

Almost two years ago,  Dan Johnson made contact with a 2-2 pitch from Jonathan Papelbon for what was arguably the biggest hit of the 2008 season. At that time, the Rays had never won a series in Boston and were on the ropes to drop yet another series in Fenway and would have surrendered their lead in the AL East with a loss in that contest. That series was a huge momentum swinger in the season giving the Rays the confidence to close out the 2008 season and win the division and go into Fenway that post-season without the fear that had accompanied them each time the franchise had gone there before.

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Tags: B.J Upton, Dan Johnson, Joaquin Benoit, Joe Maddon, Matt Garza, Red Sox

The Friday Funk Continues

I listened to half of the game driving over from Orlando to visit my parents in Dunedin and watched the other half on the television with my dad and my brother – and both parts sucked. The Rays were gifted a run when Jon Lester threw his second and third wild pitches of the season on back to back pitches and that is all they were able to scratch across on the night. JB Long of BHSN.com pointed out tonight that the Rays had a .200 winning percentage on Friday nights coming into tonight and a .691 winning percentage on any other night of the week. If that was not bad enough, the first team to score in the last 17 games between these two teams went on to win the game. I could have saved myself a lot of angst had I just shut the game off once Victor Martinez hit his first home run – the one he didn’t stand there and admire before trotting around the bases – but I held onto the last ball, I mean strike call of the night. There were few positives to take away from this game and most of them came in the ninth inning when Dan Johnson and John Jaso had two terrific at bats against Papelbon but unfortunately, Gary Darling had to give us one more crappy call to end the night on a sour note. Simply put, Darling strike zone was abysmal tonight but it is not the reason the Rays lost the game. Here are some reasons why the Rays lost tonight:

• Carl Crawford sat out with a stomach flu. It should not have mattered, but the offense struggles enough vs lefties and going from Crawford to Joyce against a lefty is like going from Salma Hayek to Thelma from Scooby Doo.
• Evan Longoria was awful. 0 for 4 with a hat trick and a GIDP. Lesser players have been loudly booed for such performances but to make matters worse, Longoria’s first three failures came with runners in scoring position.
• Ben Zobrist continues to be awful. He too was 0 for 4 with a hat trick and he is now hitting .209/.348/.282 since the end of May. A walk is the only way he is getting on base these days but he is hitting sixth? I’m sorry, but he needs to hit leadoff or ninth and nowhere else until he finds anything resembling his power stroke from 2008 and 2009. He has just eleven extra base hits in that time frame which is two less than what B.J. Upton has in August.
• 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position and 14 strikeouts on the night. It is bad enough when you fail to drive a runner in but it is worse when you fail to move them over because you cannot make any contact. The 4-5-6 hitters tonight went 0 for 10 with 8 strikeouts.

None of this should take away from the very good pitching performance by Jon Lester. Lester was the better pitcher on the night despite the five walks as he demonstrated what effective wildness looked like tonight. He gave up just two hits as he and David Price both through 106 pitches through seven innings tonight but it was Price who gave up ten base hits which included the two home runs by the red hot Victor Martinez.

The Red Sox absolutely had to have this game tonight and they got it. It is up to the Rays to respond in kind tomorrow night because the last thing they want to do right now is give that team and its fanbase momentum. For the most part tonight, the offense did about as poorly as I’ve seem them do since being dominated by Brandon Morrow earlier this month and they bounced back rather well from that ass-kicking. Let’s hope they do the same the rest of this weekend. The one positive tonight – A.J. Burnett sabotaged any chance the Yankees had of being alone in first place by being A.J. Burnett once again.

Tags: Ben Zobrist, Evan Longoria, Red Sox, RISP, strikeouts

Me and Jacob McGee

Two stories today as we all anxiously await the series with with the Red Sox that starts tonight.

NESN invited me to participate in their Across Enemy Lines segment at nesn.com. Click here to see what I said.

My weekly post at BHSN.com is also up this week and I discuss red hot prospect Jacob McGee and how he could help the Rays as they surge toward a potential American League playoff run. Click here to read that piece.

Tags: BHSN, Jacob McGee, NESN, Red Sox

Rays Add Hawpe

Since the Manny Ramirez talks were at best a pipe dream, the Rays zigged while the market zagged and have signed Brad Hawpe according to Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com

Our friend Erik Hahmann wrote a terrific piece the other day practically predicting this move so hop over to DRaysBay to see what he had to say.

Tags: Brad Hawpe

What the Rays Financial Statements Really Say

Earlier this week, I linked to Maury Brown’s work that he does at The Biz of Baseball where he covered the leaked financial documents of the Rays. Today, the King David Show on 1010 AM in Tampa Bay had Brown on as a guest to discuss this very issue. If you were unable to tune into the show today, click here to check out the archive to hear what he had to say to Toby and Shaun.

After listening to what he has to say, jump over to his website to read his latest piece about the Rays’ financials.

The bottom line of the bottom line is the Rays are in dire need of increased revenues. After what the fallout from the leaked documents, the idea that revenue-sharing will be increasing in the next CBA seems a far off notion. Increased revenues are going to have to come through the front door for the Rays. Most immediately, ticket revenues has to be front and center, and so attendance watching is going to be paramount. Eventually, the great showing in 2008, and the capacity to do it again in 2009 will pay dividends when local television and radio contracts come up for renewal. But, the writing is on the wall with the Rays docs…. Without revenue-sharing assistance, the chances for the Rays to even be near the position they are in now would be a far off dream. At least in this instance, the Rays show how the system can, and should work, if – and this is a big IF – it is not taken advantage of.