Unravel 'Em Rays

Rays Roster Revisions: As the clock ticks down to Game One of the ALCS tonight at 5:37 PTown time, the Rays released the official series roster. Eric Hinske slides over to make room for an 11th pitcher.  Edwin Jackson, one of the regular season starters gets the nod over the Rays semi-official regular season closer, Troy Percival. Whew. I can pad the Bubbly Budget with unspent Rolaid/Tums bucks. You hate to see anyone not make the roster at this point in the season, but the reality of needing a couple of long relievers at some point in this 5 game series there.  Hinske's comment?  "...it's not about me; it's about the team winning ballgames."  Class act.

Fandemonium: The Florida Aquarium is tossing Red Sox shaped snacks into their rays tank at 2pm today.   And check out this sand castle.  Game on!

The 26th Roster Spot: You won't see 'em on the line-up card, but the rings that support the dome at the Trop are just as likely to get into the game as any reserve player.  Here's an interesting look at four controversial rings the Rays already own.

EggBowl Distracts PTown Baseball Fans  ALCS Game One just happens to fall on the night of The EggBowl. That's the annual gridiron meeting of Petaluma's two public high schools.  It's a legendary battle.  This is one PTown fan will be watching baseball.  Go Rays. Unravel 'em.

Chicago River Runs Black, Blue, and Bubbly

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Ooh those boys made a mess out of the Visitor's Clubhouse on the Southside. I hope they left the attendants a nice tip.

Rather than hyperventilate over the possibility of Percy returning to the Rays' ALCS roster at the expense of our most fleet footed position player, let's have some fun.  Here we go...

You Write The Caption

My entry is the title of this post:
Chicago River Runs Black, Blue and Bubbly

C'mon. You can do much better.
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Prizes? This ain't no radio station.  We ain't got no stinkin' prizes.

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Rays Playoff Roster - The Latest...

The unofficial official Tampa Bay Rays ALDS roster is becoming clearer.

Marc Topkin (St. Pete Times) reports:

• Carl Crawford will start in LF following Instructional League game appearances Monday and Tuesday. He was 0-4 Monday and 2-3 with a triple Tuesday. He will not bat in his usual #2 spot, however.
• The Rays will go with a 4 man rotation for the first series with Shields getting the start Thursday, Kazmir Friday, Garza in game 3 and Sonnanstine in game 4. Edwin Jackson said he's not on the playoff roster. Tough call, but he's just not a reliever.
• Though not official until tomorrow morning, it looks like the Rays have opted for Price over Percival. Thank God.

More on Topkin's blog.

PRays The Lord And Pass The Advil!

The Rays deserved a celebraytion.

And they got one. Which might explain why the B Team took the field in the final game of the Twin series yesterday at The Trop. Sonny pitched another great game but didn't have the customary and ultra reliable infield to back him up. Longo was the only regular infielder and his aim was a bit off yesterday. At the end of the day in front of another sell-out crowd, the Rays came up short in a 1-4 loss to Minnesota. No action for the hometown boy. That swing is sure gonna be rusty if he ever gets a chance to air it out. The Magic Number clicker is still stuck on 6 with a Red Sox win yesterday.

Photo Steve Nesius (AP)

The drive for the AL East begins today as the Magic Bus rolls to Baltimore.

The last week of the regular season will feature rookie starters on the mound. David Price gets the ball tonight. Mitch Talbott tomorrow night. Garza, who threw on a quick turnaround last week, gets a rest until Saturday. Meanwhile, Percy's back is still in knots and he'll have a second set of epidural injections Tuesday and be available to pitch on Thursday. If things go well. He pitched an inning in relief on back to back days this weekend and wiggled through them with only a slight bit of drama. Joe's got some mighty heavy closer dice to roll in about a week. Percy better level with him to keep the 9=8 equation in balance. If the math on the t-shirts is new to you, it's been Joe Maddon's mantra all season. That's 9 players playing hard for 9 months = 8 teams that play on. Hey, it's worked so far :-)

Post-Season Roster Prognostications.

Carl Crawford's hand is still not cleared to swing a bat. He may be available this week as a defensive replacement or to pinch run. A reinjured tendon could be career ending. He didn't have a career year and may not be able to pick up where he left off. Rocco Baldelli is a great story and we love him, but he seems to need several days between partial games to recover. When this roster is whittled back down to 25 players for the playoff run it will be a tough call between two guys who could be out for the season, or worse, with one wrong move... or a few healthy guys who can be personally credited with the single game or two that will probably decide the AL East. Ruggiano, Perez, Gomes, Johnson, Baldelli, and Crawford. Oohhh-eee. Tough call.

Rays Playoff Bubbly In Bubble Wrap One More Night

PTownJr's Back To School Night topped the priority list last night. However, I managed to follow the ebb and flow of the Rays/Twins game on my most awesome and completely indispensable iPhone. Lot's of flow early. Followed by an ugly ebb. Really, it was more of a victory sucking vortex that swallowed the Rays 8-6 lead in the 9th.

Blowing a late lead has been a mighty rare occurrence this season so let's break it down with the return of The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

You owe it to yourself to cue the music for this one. Just click that play button on the right:

THE GOOD:

• A five run first!
• Three long balls for Long-o.
• Pena and Navi went yard.
• Pena and Longo went yard back to back, the 8th B2B set for the Rays this year.
• Some fine defensive plays... or so I hear. The iPhone MLB dudes were pre-occupied with the highly offensive top of the 9th.
• The home debut of David Price, the 1st overall draft pick of the 2007 draft. King David went 2/3 of an inning in relief of a somewhat shaky Shields. Coming in with one out and two on, he K'd two tough lefties after giving up a 2 run single.
• Percy pitched a scoreless 8th! !!!!! !!!!! !
• The Rays could clinch a wildcard spot tonight with a win. But only if the White Sox, Jays and Yankees all lose. I hope all 18 eyeballs are on the game and not the scoreboard tonight.

THE BAD:

• A crowd of only 17,298. People! What gives out there? Are all the Back To School Nights in Florida on September 17th? I don't think so!
• Those three long balls of Longo's tied Jonny's Team Record for most home runs in a game vs. KC in July, 2005. C'mon Evan. You're a stud, but is nothing sacred? You already have my vote for Rookie of the Year without raiding the trophy case.
• The dart board Joe is using to pick the Closer Du Jour needs some grease. Or fairy dust. Or something.

THE UGLY:

• The Twins scored 5 in the top of the 9th sparked by some local kid named Span playing in front of the hometown crowd for the first time.
• Delmon Young was among those that piled on. (Remember him? The Skipper got on him for not running out an infield hit last year so he declared a sick day and got himself traded... for Bartlett and Garza. Neener neener.)
• The Twins used a slug bunt to inflict more damange. Gardenshire credited head coach Paul Maytorena of the Casa Grande High School Gauchos for that move. Thanks Paul. You got some 'splainin to do. From now on, you're limited to one copy of the playbook.

Last But Not Least:

The Pearls have become pretty Rays centric of late, but we need to send some love to Brandon Morrow. His latest outing wasn't so pretty so we won't dwell on it, but just want to send the good vibes to a good kid who has pledged more memorabilia for the silent auction at our 2008 Camp For A Cure. More news on Camp coming soon.

Just like hitting bottle caps with sticks... Sox Meatloafed in 90th Win

"We were joking around in the dugout before he hit the home run," Pena said. "A popular game in the Dominican Republic is to hit the bottlecaps with the sticks. So I'm like, 'Hey man, Willy's played a lot of bottlecaps with sticks. It's a good matchup here."

That was Carlos Pena's reaction to Joe Maddon's light bending lineup card last night. Tim Wakefield has owned The Trop and lefty DH Cliff Floyd was just 1-11 against the knuckleballer. So why not try something new? Joe's solution... use untested switch hitter Willie Aybar's right handed bat against the softball server. Something about the bat path of his swing path from that side of the plate. Uh huh. Willie went yard in his first at bat and put the Rays up 3-2. They never looked back. Gross, Perez and Longo flicked a few bottlecaps before Francona pulled the plug and began the bullpen emptying procession of Sox relievers.

Meanwhile, Ortiz hit two home runs off Garza who held his ground but didn't dazzle last night. With a cushy but not comfortable 8-3 lead in the 5th and Ortiz coming to the plate a third time, Maddon went to the pen with a one-run mindset. Garza needed only one more out to be credited with the win, but in the other quote of the evening, Maddon later said:

""It isn't about Garza's won-loss record," Maddon said. "It's about the Rays' won-loss record."

We'll need that kind of thinking a lot during the next 45 or so days.

No bottlecaps for Jonny in the Rays 10-3 win last night. But I'm sure he's having the time of his life. The Rays Meatloafed the Sox again taking 2 of 3 and reduced their magic numbers to 10 for the AL East Championship and 4 for a wild card berth. They host the Twins in a four game series that begins tonight and finish the season with a 7 game road trip in Baltimore and Detroit. Let's hope a two game lead over the Sox is enough.

The Rays have now blown through all but the most Pollyanna-ish expecations, notching their 90th win. 95 is within reach. Whoda (really) thunk it?

PTown Plea: Pitch Percy

But please, not as a closer.

Last night Percy got the call in the 14th after Carlos Pena broke a 1-1 Boston stalemate with a 3 run opposite field bomb that lead to a 4-2 Tampa Bay win. Unfortunately, the Rays couldn't push across any of the 25 guys they left on base before Pena's two out blast. The bullpen nearly died trying to give them another chance. Trever Miller threw a 7 pitch one-two-three 13th. 6 of those pitches were strikes. I'd have let him finish the thing, but Jo Jo is big into friendship and tradition and the Rays Way and all. So Percy got the call. He threw 11 pitches to three hitters and parsed out one strike to each of them. Elsbury burned his on a nice leadoff double. Pedroia and Ortiz used their's to add drama in back-to-back walks. After Joe stared into Percy's Good Face for a long minute or two, he didn't sense another skin of the teeth save. Hamel took the mound with bases loaded and picked up his first career save with a K and two fly outs.

And the Rays won the biggest series in team history. Again. The magic mojo continues.

Joe Maddon seems to be a lock for Manager of The Year. But continuing to rely on a closer who can't close could be his undoing. Over his last 6 appearances, Percy has pitched 3.2 innings giving up 5 hits, 8 walks, and 8 runs. The Ray's offensive production has been thin all year. Defense and pitching have picked them up. The Rays are a bit battered right now with Longo, Crawford, and Upton out of the lineup and the reserve catcher probably out for the season. Every win is critical with the Sox just 2.5 games back and Baltimore likely to be the only "gimme" series in the rest of the schedule. The Rays need to get those runners across in the 8th and 9th innings and they need a closer they can count on. Percy's stints between trips to to DL have become shorter and less effective. Last night, it was back stiffness, not the hammie or the knee. Percy has worn himself out and it's time to crown another closer while there is still a game or two of wiggle room to make the adjustment. Percy's a veteran , a leader, a huge part of the team chemistry that has powered this season and we love him. He can still be useful to the Rays. Just don't ask him to close.

Percy Lays An Egg

Decided against "Percy Poops The Nest" for the title of this blog. Such restraint.

Arrived home late this morning at peace with the world after PTownJunior's productive day at the ballpark. The first pitching lesson of the fall season paid off and the kid threw a dynamite inning in middle-relief and was 2 for 3 at the plate. The team had a big win and the scorebook was a pleasure to keep with crisp defense and darned good pitching today. PTownPrincess even joined us at the ballpark... in a delightful mood... a lovely surprise. 22nd wedding anniversary to boot. All in all, a perfectly pleasant morning in PTown. Then the mercury began its march to 100 degrees for the third day in a row.

I bagged the outdoor to do list in favor of game two of the Rays/Jays series. Important roadtrip. Big month. Division Title or Wild Card. Sox close, Jays closing and Yanks not quite out of it yet. No TV for today's game so I was delighted to find my internet buddies online "watching" the game in our OnLine Forum (no honey, it is N-O-T a chatroom). Thanks to Al Gore inventing the internet and some convenient enhancements by Microsoft and Apple, we don't need no stinkin' TV to enjoy the game.

Early one today so I missed the first 8 innings but still managed to catch most of the game. The Rays tied it at 3-3 in the 9th on Rocco's two run homer and a clutch RBI single by Navi . The Jays couldn't push across the winning run so we were on to extras. Both teams had chances, but couldn't score until All-Star catcher Dioner Navarro knocked a clutch two out single to score the speedy new outfielder, Fernando Perez, in the top of the 13th. An insurance run or two would have been nice in that situation, but Ben Zobrist, who has been frequent hero this year, came to the plate and K'd. With a thud.

The bottom of the 13th brought Troy Percival to the mound. Percy's been on the DL a few times this year and was shaky in his return against the Yanks a few days ago. He wasn't shaky today. He stunk. Pena fielded a tough popup foul for the first out. Wells and Wilkerson followed with singles. Overbay forced Wilkerson for the second out with runners at the corners, the disaster unfolded. Percy walked Rolen, perhaps semi-intentionally, and Gregg Zaun drove a first pitch 92 mph fastball over the right field wall for a walk off Grand Slam. Hello Sports Center.

I think I'll go mop now. Maybe lavender scented soap will restore the calm I felt this morning. Maybe not.