Posts Tagged Tampa Bay Rays
April 11, 2008 at 12:01 pm · Filed under MLB ·Tagged Al Reyes, fun with Tasers, perseverence, spitting blood, Tampa Bay Rays, thrashing about
Tampa Bay Rays setup man Al Reyes celebrated his 38th birthday in style Thursday night, getting wasted and causing several disturbances at Tampa’s Hyde Park Cafe.
According to a St. Petersburg Times report, Reyes became angry with another bar patron when the pitcher staggered into a ceramic pot inside the bar. Reyes contended that the other patron, identified as Eduardo Mora, had shoved him into the pot, and called him out on his chicanery.
Mora, surely unaware that it was Reyes’ birthday, responded by punching the burly right-hander in his 38-year-old face. And that’s where the real fun began.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
April 8, 2008 at 5:01 am · Filed under MLB, NCAA ·Tagged Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, blown leads, blown saves, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies, Florida Marlins, Houston Astros, Kansas Jayhawks, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Los Angeles Dodgers, Mario Chalmers, Memphis Tigers, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays, Washington Nationals, YouTube
Obviously, Monday’s biggest sports story had nothing to do with baseball. As we predicted less than a month ago, the Kansas Jayhawks knocked off the Memphis Tigers in overtime, 75-68, to be crowned the collegiate national champions for the first time since 1988.
It was an incredible back-and-forth affair, as neither team could seemingly pull away when it took the lead. It wasn’t until late in the second half, when the Tigers took a nine-point advantage with 2:12 left on the clock, that the game looked to be in hand. Kansas had chosen to foul Robert Dozier, with its apparent game plan being to exploit what was perceived to be Memphis’s glaring weakness, foul shooting. But when Dozier sank both shots, the game looked to be over.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
April 5, 2008 at 3:44 am · Filed under MLB ·Tagged Arizona Diamondbacks, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Chad Cordero, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies, Detroit Tigers, Florida Marlins, Franquelis Osoria, half-assed retractions, Houston Astros, Justin Duchscherer, Kansas City Royals, LaTroy Hawkins, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, predictions, Rickie Weeks, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Toronto Blue Jays, Washington Nationals
It didn’t take all that long for the final undefeated team to take a loss in the 2008 Major League Baseball season. The Kansas City Royals had their hopes of a 173-0 season dashed on Friday night when they were edged out by the Minnesota Twins, 4-3. Lefty John Bale, making his first Major League start since September 18, 2003, kept his then-unblemished team in the game by allowing four runs in 6 1/3 innings. Unfortunately for Bale and the Royals, Minnesota’s Scott Baker was a little bit better. The Twins righthander threw 6 2/3 innings of 3-run ball, allowing seven hits and walking none while striking out two.
When Baker departed, he turned the game over to the capable back end of the Minnesota bullpen. Pat Neshek and Joe Nathan joined forces to record the final seven outs of the game while only allowing one hit, enabling the Twins to hang on for the win.
The Royals fall to 3-1 following the loss, and are now tied with the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers for the best record in baseball.
The Detroit Tigers find themselves on the other end of the spectrum after losing their fourth consecutive game to begin the season. A.J. Pierzynski led the charge against the Tigers today, delivering a three-run home run and driving in a total of five runs to lead the Chicago White Sox to an 8-5 win. The White Sox improved their record to 2-2, while the Tigers fell to 0-4.
A quick look at the remainder of Friday’s games after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
April 3, 2008 at 4:18 am · Filed under MLB ·Tagged Al Reyes, Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies, Daniel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers, Eric Gagne Disease, Florida Marlins, fortune cookies, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, manipulative rainfall, Matt Garza, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, predictions, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Toronto Blue Jays, Washington Nationals
A day ago, I pointed out what I thought was an interesting pitching matchup in Wednesday’s Tampa Bay-Baltimore meeting. The game was to involve two pitchers who had previously dominated the opposing team — Matt Garza for Tampa Bay (3-0, 2.16 ERA in three starts vs. Baltimore) and Daniel Cabrera for the O’s (6-0, 3.04 ERA in 11 starts against the Rays). I speculated that pitching would likely be the key to the game, even calling it a “sleeper” matchup.
Well, I was wrong. Neither pitcher made it past the sixth inning — Cabrera was gone after four — and neither factored into the decision. Cabrera was particularly awful, relinquishing six runs on six hits in the four innings. As he often does, Cabrera also struggled with his control, walking five batters while only striking out a pair.
Garza’s line wasn’t much prettier. He got the hook after tossing 5 1/3 innings of 5-run ball. He allowed six hits and walked two batters while striking out three. Despite his poor outing, the former Twin left the game in a position to pick up his fourth win in as many starts against the Orioles.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
April 1, 2008 at 4:37 am · Filed under MLB ·Tagged Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, bad ideas, Baltimore Orioles, blown saves, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, comically bad earned run averages, Detroit Tigers, Eric Gagne, Florida Marlins, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals, Kerry Wood, Kosuke Fukudome, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Tom Gordon, Washington Nationals, YouTube
The first full day of the 2008 Major League Baseball season has passed, with 12 of today’s 15 scheduled games having been played to their completion. As it usually does, Opening Day provided us with several wild games, a number of star pitchers getting lit up, and a couple of statistical anomalies.
Two of the more interesting anomalies are directly related to each other. The Washington Nationals are currently the best team in Major League Baseball, having won both of their games. They followed up Sunday night’s Ryan Zimmerman walk-off home run with some more late-game heroics, as the Nats, for lack of a more delicate way of putting it, beat the shit out of interim Phillies closer Tom Gordon. Gordon retired only one batter while being charged with five earned runs, which impressively puts his ERA at 135.00.
Two other closers imploded Monday in what was likely the game of the day between the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs. Ben Sheets and Carlos Zambrano were both dominant, with both starters taking shutouts into the seventh inning before turning the games over to their respective bullpens. Until the ninth inning, both ‘pens were similarly magnificent, and the game remained tied.
Then came the guys that are paid to slam the door shut.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
March 31, 2008 at 5:47 am · Filed under MLB ·Tagged Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, bad ideas, Baltimore Orioles, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies, Detroit Tigers, Florida Marlins, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Opening Day, persistence, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, predictions, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Toronto Blue Jays, Washington Nationals
Well, I’m down to 1-2 following Washington’s dramatic 3-2 win over the Braves on Sunday night. With Monday’s slate of games fast approaching, I decided to err on the side of caution and just throw out my quick and dirty picks for Opening Day. In the future, I’ll probably briefly feature at least one of the day’s scheduled games before making my picks. But, in the interest of saving time, I’m just going to bust out the picks and then take about a seven hour nap. If you’re looking for MLB-related content, though, I’ve recently written preview pieces of each of the six divisions, and will probably culminate that series with my playoff/World Series picks on either Monday or Tuesday.
Here it goes.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
March 25, 2008 at 3:21 am · Filed under MLB ·Tagged AL East, American League, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Major League Baseball, MLB Preview, New York Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays, torn rotator cuff, Toronto Blue Jays
With less than six hours to go before the start of the 2008 Major League Baseball season, I figured it’d be a good time to get going on the Official Merrill Park Superstar 2008 Major League Baseball Season Preview™.
There’s a big difference between this and my analyses/projections of college basketball (and to a lesser extent the NFL) in that I put a lot more faith in my own judgment — the “eyeball test” ESPN’s college hoops talking heads frequently make reference to — than I would with college basketball and pro football. Here’s my ever-so-complex explanation for why I do this: I feel I have much greater knowledge of baseball than basketball and football.
Why? Well, there are several reasons. However, I’m the type of person that tends to learn through experience. And, of the “big four” sports, the one I have far and away the most experience playing is baseball. I started playing little league when I was about 10, probably younger, and continued playing in rec leagues well into high school, before my torn rotator cuff finally made playing full seasons a near impossibility.
Still, I played baseball in some capacity for at least eight years — likely more than half that time with a significant arm injury — and thus, that’s the sport I feel I have the greatest knowledge of, just from firsthand involvement. (For the record, basketball would be second on that list, albeit a distant one — my best days were behind me as soon as everyone else but me started growing in middle school.) It also helps that baseball is the most visible mainstream sport, what with its 162-game schedule. So, not only have I had the greatest amount of firsthand experience with the national pastime, but I’ve also surely seen far more baseball than any other sport. And I’m not even going to get into sharing an apartment with members of my school’s baseball team last year. You should get the point by now, assuming you haven’t just scrolled past this, perhaps in a fit of rage that had you shouting “GET TO THE FUCKING POINT!” at your screen.
SO…with all of those opening pleasantries out of the way, we can almost get to said point. Just one more thing to note: even though I say I’m less reliant on formulas and numbers when it comes to analyzing baseball, that certainly doesn’t mean I disregard them altogether.
OKAY. On to the preview.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Merrill Park Superstar 