Comments on: RAYS 8, Angels 5: Just keep on rollin’

By: Eddiey

Eddiey — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:58:31 +0000

Joe Maddon has been criticized plenty during his tenure as manager.
The time has come to give him alot of the credit for what this team
is accomplishing.

By: Scott Caruso

Scott Caruso — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:56:28 +0000

Not bad for someone who’s been half-assing it for 2 weeks. :)

By: hubkid

hubkid — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:10:15 +0000

Wow a Deadspin link, moving on up Scott

By: bobr

bobr — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:03:53 +0000

I think it useful to remember that the Rays have 5 pitchers (Balfour, Birkins, Munter, Ryu, Salas) at Durham with more than a “cup of coffee” experience in the majors which provides excellent depth in the event of injury or ineffectiveness. Balfour is currently doing very well, and Birkins showed promise in his brief outings in TB this year.

We also have 4 other players (DeFelice, Dan Johnson, John Rodriguez, Chris Richard) with more than a bit of major league time. Johnson is doing very nicely in Durham and Rodriguez was a valuable reserve in St. Louis for a couple of years. In addition, Ruggiano has been excellent since his demotion, hitting for average, getting on base, showing power and stealing bases.

I do not think any of these players rank as prospects (maybe Ruggiano) or project as regulars, but as backups readily available to the team they could become very valuable. And there are still Aybar and Reyes on the way, and maybe even Haynes stays in the organization. We saw Floyd’s impact yesterday, and that should be a big plus as well.

By: A.J.

A.J. — Mon, 12 May 2008 12:00:49 +0000

Great game to watch. A true see-saw battle. I like the lineup presence with Floyd in there. He brings another element to the lineup that nobody else has this year. While Longoria has been struggling, he did exactly what he was supposed to do his first AB by driving in the run with a deep flyball. I think he’ll see some pretty good pitches if Cliff can keep on swinging the way he is, as well. But I doubt very seriously that they will send Longoria down when Aybar gets back. He is doing a great job defensively, and has been getting pretty timely hits, though not many, for the team when they are in need. The sacrifice fly yesterday doesn’t go down as a hit, but it was a great job with 2 strikes of just great situational hitting. He also had the walk-off bomb the other night, so he’s doing fine in my book.
And Scott, I am ready to say it now. I may have been wrong about J.P. Howell, and he is doing a magnificent job. I was one of the many people who thought he would be terrible, but I am wrong. However, I did say he would be better if his fastball got back into the upper 80’s, which he did the other night by hitting 88 on the gun a couple of times. But, I didn’t think he’d be this god, and I am able to say that I was wrong about him.
While I am happy to see Glover back, I think another person who is happy to see him is Dan Wheeler. He might actually get a night off tonight. I know he didn’t get into the game yesterday, but he did warm up for about 10 minutes in the bullpen. Wheeler and Percival have been very busy in the last week, and deserve a night off. I look for Glover to be the setup man tonight and Wheeler the closer, and tomorrow night Glover will setup for Percival. But what the heck, let’s just beat the Yankees by 4 or more runs tonight. Then we don’t have to worry about a closer.