June 11-13 at Detroit (3)
Game 1: A laugher turned into a nail-biter thanks to a rare off-night from the bullpen. Up 5-0 through 6 thanks to a 3-run, 5-hit 2nd and 3rd inning solo shots from Martinez and Bohm, Blake Snell took a no-hitter into the 7th when DJ Peters led off with an infield single. He came around to score after a wild pitch, ground out and sac fly but Snell tired in the 8th, and Austin Adams let Snell's runner and one of his own score to make it 5-3. Wander's RBI double top 9 made it 6-3 and Hand came on to close it out but hit the first two batters, walked another, gave a up a hit or two, and it was 6-5 with the bases loaded and 2 out. With Hand tired and the pen exhausted from the day previous, Chaz Roe to came on to face Peters with the game on the line, struck him out, and got save #2. Whew!
Game 2: Things looked good early with a Wander triple and Renfroe HR giving the Rays a 2-1 lead in the 4th but it was all downhill from there as Trevor Richards imploded in the bottom of the inning, and the Tigers went on to win 7-2 behind a 6-hit CG from Casey Mize. The Ji-Man HR a couple of games ago turned out not be a slump-buster as his 0-4 today has him down to .220. The only good that came from the day is that the Yankees lost so we didn't slip further behind.
Game 3: Brendan McKay found himself down 3-1 after 4 by allowing 3 solo HRs but the Rays ralled for 2 in the 5th and Renfroe broke the tie in the 6th with a solo shot. McKay made it into the seventh (despite at one point uncharacteristically loading the bases on walks) and the bullpen shut it down from there with Anderson getting save #4 (Hand was still tired) for a not-too-pretty-but-we'll-take-it 4-3 win.
By the way with the loss Detroit dropped to 33-37 and out of first place. The White Sox now lead the division at 34-36. Yes, that's how bad the AL Central is. In other oddities, St. Louis was losing 13-1 in the 9th against Pittsburgh and ran out of pitchers so brief-ex-Ray Howie Kendrick got the last two outs on strikeouts!
Record: 46-26
WanderWatch: .354-9-41-20, 3rd in AL in WAR with 3.6.
June 13: Optioned P Jacob Nix to AAA Durham, recalled P Yonny Chirinos from his rehab assignment.
June 15-17, vs New York Yankees (3)
The Yankees come to the Trop for a huge series with the Rays 5 1/2 back. Even though it's mid-June anything less than taking 2 of 3 will severely cripple their hopes of taking the division. Joe Ryan will get his biggest MLB test in Game 2 of the series.
Game 1: With the matchup Max Fried vs Gerrit Cole, the Yankees were favorites tonight. And an unfortunate sequence in the 2nd saw Fried walk a pair ahead of a Mike Tauchman longball. But Fried hung in there and the Rays finally got to Cole in the 6th with back-to-back jacks from Meadows (a 2-run shot) and Renfroe and the game was tied. The Rays then strung together 3 straight hits but Cafecito was gunned down at the plate by Aaron Hicks, and top 7th Fried was pulled with two outs after a walk. Diego Castillo then gave up a run-scoring double to Gleyber Torres, and in the 8th Jose Alvarado let the team down by serving up Tauchman's 2nd HR of the game, a 2-run shot. 6-3 was the final and now the next two are must-win for the Rays.
Game 2: With Joe Ryan on the mound, the risk is always HRs vs Ks and with the Yankees you'd expect a lot of both. Sure enough, after Meadows opened the scoring with a 1st inning solo shot off Corey Kluber, Mike Ford did likewise top 2, and in the 3rd Luke Voit had a two-run blast. But that was all Ryan gave up through 6, and ended up allowing only 3 hits while walking 1 and fanning 7. Meanwhile the Rays had a longball party of their own as Jose Martinez made it 3-2 with a solo shot in the 4th and then in the 6th the unconscious Hunter Renfroe went deep yet again (now 3rd in the AL in HRs with 27) with a man on to make it 4-3. The bullpen, which has struggled for its first stretch all year, looked like it would continue to founder as Alvarado walked the bases loaded with 1 out. Nick Anderson was summoned for express purpose of getting some Ks, and that he did fanning Tyler Wade and Voit. Anderson stayed on for the 8th and whiffed Stanton and Gary Sanchez after a Torres single, and then with lefty Ford due up, Brad Hand came on to get him on a pop-up and then Hand fanned the side in the 9th for save #13 as the Rays got a much-needed and satisfying 4-3 win with Ryan now 3-0 in 4 starts.
By the way, check out the triple slash #s for Meadows from 2019-2021. Talk about consistency:
Game 3: Normally if the Rays score 7 runs you can bet your house that they'll win. Well not tonight at the Trop in a 11-7 Yanks victory as they were all over a struggling Blake Snell and the bullpen woes continued, especially with Roe allowing 2 of Snell's inherited runners to score and Diego Castillo the primary culprit in a disastrous 5-run 8th that broke open a 6-5 game. Meadows homered for the third straight game in the series (to give the Rays a brief 4-3 lead) and Wander (#10) took the highly-supported Trevor Bauer (9-3 but with a 4.48 ERA) deep as well. Snell surrendered homers to Stanton (his 30th), Torres and Tyler Wade (who's making Yankee fans forget DJ LeMahieu). The only other bright spot was that Ji-Man doubled and walked. But now the Rays are now 6 1/2 out and might just be looking at playing another 87 games just to get ready for one.
Team record: 47-28.
WanderWatch: .355-10-42-21
June 18-20 at Chicago Cubs (3)
Game 1: The big news in Chicago was that potential FA Kris Bryant signed a 7-year contract extension. I was looking at him as a possible rental come trade deadline time, but that's out the window now. As for the game, Yonny Chirinos got his first start since early May and despite 3 starts in Durham on rehab, the rust showed as he was nothing like his April AL Pitcher of the Month self, allowing 3 runs and 7 hits in 4+ innings, including a 2-run HR to Jason Heyward who only had 1 coming in. Still the Rays had a nice 3-run 4th that started with a Ji-Man HR (out of the slump?) and included a Yonny sac fly to go up 3-2. But he yielded a HR to David Bote, and then in a 3-3 game in the 7th Diego blew up once again, allowing 3 runs without an out (including a 2nd Bote HR) and the Rays couldn't get anything going against the Cubs pen so it was a 6-3 loss. (Note: I went to Diego as Alvarado and Adams were tired and Castillo still showed up in white, the pen is pretty worked over after the Yankees series)
Game 2: The slump continues as the Rays fell 5-2 to the Cubs today. Brendan McKay wasn't terribly sharp, yielding a pair of HRs to Yasiel Puig (getting a rare start) and one to Nico Hoerner, but all were solo shots and he was only down 3-2 with two out in the sixth with one out to get before being pinch-hit for (he whiffed both times up) but gave up a pair of run-scoring hits. Meadows was the entire offense today with 2 RBI singles to bring his season total to 74 (3rd in the AL) while the team let notorious soft-tosser Kyle Hendricks fan them 9 times in 7 innings. And Craig Kimbrel got three straight whiffs for the save. The Yankees are now in another world at 56-22 and 8 1/2 games up. They're still 6 up in the first wild card spot over Oakland and 7 over Seattle, for now.
Game 3: A rare relaxing day at the ballpark as the Rays jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, built on it, and coasted to a 7-1 win over the Cubs. Wander was the star today with his first MLB 2-HR game, a 2-run shot in the first and solo blast in the 5th, both off Cub starter Cory Abbott (he also stole his 23rd base). Max Fried meanwhile shut the Cubs down for a 7 5 0 0 1 4 line with the only Cub run coming on an Ian Happ HR off Trevor Richards who pitched the last 2 innings and helped give the bullpen a much-needed rest. By the way, forgot to mention yesterday that it took a year and a half into this sim, but I finally had a Kevin Kiermaier injury. This one's not too serious though, quadriceps strain DTD for 5 days. With the Rays in NL ballparks through this period I'm going to just leave him on the active roster and not DL him.
Team record: 48-30.
WanderWatch: .349-12-45-23
June 21-23, at Milwaukee (3)
Game 1: Well that was a gut punch. I'm not sure which terrible news to start with first. Guess I'll go with the potentially really bad news and that was Wander Franco suffered some kind of knee/leg injury and had to leave the game. And he's been hit with the dreaded "injured, diagnosis pending" tag that's held through the next day. It was my fault, I guess, as I had him take an extra base on a Meadows single instead of holding him, trying to get him to 3rd with less than 2 outs. And the cruel irony is that it turned out be irrelevant because Renfroe cracked a 3-run HR in the next at-bat. Speaking of the game, in addition to Renfroe's blast, Ji-Man had a 3-run shot of his own as he continues to come out of his slump, and the Rays were up 6-1 behind Joe Ryan after 5. Ryan then gave up a pair of solo shots in the 6th (the second to Christian Yelich is still in orbit) to cut the lead to 6-3. Austin Adams got the K to get out of that inning, but he made a mess in the 7th and then Chaz Roe with two out, gave up a 2-run single to make it 6-5. He couldn't get the next out, and because of the 3-batter rule he had to stay in and face Yelich. You can guess the rest, Yelich made it 8-6 with one swing of the bat, and then in the 8th Jose Alvarado coughed a 3-run HR to pinch-hitter Matt Kemp who had announced his end-of-season retirement the day before. Meanwhile, the offense didn't get a hit after the Ji-Man HR in the 5th and things look dark indeed at the moment.
June 22: Placed Wander Franco on the 10-day DL with (?), purchased the contract of Freddy Galvis from AAA Durham.
Whatever it is with Franco, it probably isn't good, and Joey Wendle isn't the answer at SS so I brought up Galvis, who will at least provide 65 defense at SS, something the infield has lacked. If by some miracle Wander's injury is minor, well he can have a week off to rest.
Game 2: Guess I was blessed in the first year and a half of this sim in that there were no major injuries on the Rays. Still waiting on a Franco diagnosis, and while that happens now Blake Snell is hurt, having to come out after 4 innings with his own dreaded "injured, diagnosis pending" label. Snell was staked to a 7-0 lead for which he was partially responsible by going 2-2 with an RBI, but on the final out of the 4th he had to come out. In the "other than that how was the play Mrs. Lincoln" department the team at least fought through the bad news for a win this time, prevailing 8-4. Alec hit a 3-run Bohm in the first inning and then Manuel Margot went deep for a pair in the 3rd inning chasing Brent Suter. Anthony Banda had to pick up the slack in place of Snell and did well, pitching three strong innings, allowing only one run and striking out 6 to get the win. But now are fingers are crossed for both Snell and Wander, the two guys this team really can't lose perhaps other than Meadows.
June 23: Wander Franco injury update: out six weeks with a strained hamstring. Needless to say this will be most babied hamstring in MLB history. Realistically we're looking at him back in mid-August barring any setbacks. Still no word on Snell.
Game 3: Wondering if any black cats were let into the clubhouse as today was another excruciating day at the ballpark. Yonny took the mound and after allowing runs in the first and second settled down for a nice 6.2 7 2 2 0 4 line. The only problem was that the Rays couldn't do anything against Brewers starter Drew Rasmussen (6 4 0 0 1 9). And so it went into the top of the 9th with perhaps the league's best closer on the mound, Josh Hader. But the Rays got to him, aided by a costly Jose Iglesias error and with two out Margot's 2-run single tied it and Whit Merrifield's followed with an RBI single to give the Rays a 3-2 lead. But in the bottom of the 9th Brad Hand got two outs, but couldn't get the third on as with a man on and after striking out Yelich, he yielded a game-tying double to potential Rays trade target Marwin Gonzalez. And in the bottom of the 10th Nick Anderson's third pitch to Luis Urias was deposited over the wall in left-center to deal the Rays a loss in a game they should have both lost and won. An off-day coming up in which we'll probably get word on Snell.
Team record: 49-32.
WanderWatch: .347-12-45-23 (and now my WanderWatch has ended, to be resumed when he comes back)
June 25: Placed P Blake Snell on 15-day DL, recalled P Ryan Yarbrough from AAA Durham.
The word is shoulder bursitis with a 6-week timetable, so hopefully he's back in mid-August around the same time as Wander. Yarbrough is the logical choice off the 40-man, although I will be in the trade market for help. Meanwhile in hopefully good injury news, Tyler Glasnow is only 5 days from going on a rehab assignment.
June 25: Traded C Mike Zunino to the Kansas City Royals for C Salvador Perez. (Kansas City retains 75% of Perez's salary)
Both of these guys are free agents at season's end, but Perez is a definite upgrade at the bat on Zunino (both are 65 defensively). The salary retention makes the $ a wash. Z was hitting .170 or so just like he did in 2019 (after an acceptable bounceback to the .220s last year) while Perez already has 12 HR and his .235 average looks like Tony Gwynn compared to Zunino and the .195-hitting Jason Castro. Not sure what KC gets out of this as they're something like 29-50 but they seemed happy to make the deal and Perez came up when I shopped Zunino. Plan is to play Perez 2/3 of the time with Castro in against tough righties and when Perez needs rest. As mentioned elsewhere, the 2022 plan is to go with rookie Ronaldo Hernandez, still hitting .335 or so at Durham and to pair him with a vet, unless of course a trade opportunity for someone young and good comes along. (By the way one thing that surprised me was I thought Perez was much older than Zunino but they're 31 and 30 respectively.)
June 25-27 vs Houston (3)
Game 1: Wow! That's all I can say about two guys who had the games of their MLB lives tonight against Houston. First is Brendan McKay, who came out dealing against a Houston lineup whose first five hitters already had at least 20 HR, the #7 hitter has 19, and the #6 hitter is Jose Altuve. But the way McKay pitched it didn't matter if it was the 27 Yankees tonight as he was perfect through 4, striking out 8, and had a one-hit, no-walk, 12-K performance through 7. He allowed a pair of singles to start the 8th and was approaching 100 pitches so he was pulled for Chaz Roe, who got a DP and then a 1-2-3 ninth to preserve the shutout. And the reason it was Roe and not someone used in higher-leverage situations was thanks to Alec Bohm who was 3-4, including taking Zack Greinke deep twice with a solo shot in the 4th and a 3-run HR in the 6th which chased the Houston ace. At that point it was our final score of 7-0. Elsewhere, Jose Martinez earlier had a 2-run single and Sal Perez went 0-4 in his Rays debut. But of course we couldn't get through one game without an injury and Kiermaier, who was fully recovered from his quadriceps strain, injured his hand (diagnosis pending) after kicking off the scoring with an RBI double. Meanwhile, lookie here:
June 26: Signed OF Austin Meadows to a 4-year, $43.29 million-dollar extension.
Meadows, who was due for a huge raise in arbitration next year, gets an extension through his age 30 year. Details here:
Game 2: The Friedassance continues as Max picked up where McKay left off the night before, shutting down the hot-hitting Astros with strikeouts galore. He pitched 6 2/3 strong innings, allowing just 4 hits and striking out a season-high 11 and left with a 4-0 lead, although Nick Anderson gave up a Carlos Correa RBI single for the only run the Astros have scored in two nights at the Trop. After the Rays extended the lead to 5-1 going into the 9th, Alvarado came on instead of Hand and proceeded to give up a couple of hits leading Hand to come in anyway and strike out Jonathan Schoop to end the game and get save #14. With the win Fried goes to 8-6 and finally gets his ERA below 4 at 3.83. Meanwhile the Rays jumped on Jose Quintana for their four runs in the first two innings with Jose Martinez 3-4 with 2 RBI and the newly-extended Meadows 3-5 with 1. Still 7 1/2 behind the Yankees but it's better to win than lose. And finallly some good injury news: it turns out Kiermaier only has a thumb contusion and is day-to-day for one day. Had Kiermaier been out an extended time I was prepared to call up the red-hot Josh Lowe from AA to play center in the platoon with Margot.
Game 3: How sweep it is! After losing 2 out of 3 in each of their last 3 series (the last two against the mediocre Cubs and Brewers), seeing Houston looming on the calendar didn't exactly inspire hope of a turnaround, but another solid outing from a starter (though not as impressive as McKay and Fried before) and some timely hitting led to a 6-3 win. Joe Ryan was rolling through 5, allowing 0 runs and 2 hits, but his one bugaboo - HRs - came back to bite him as Martin Maldonado, Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez (#35 for him) all hit solo shots to get Houston within 5-3. Ryan has now allowed 9 HR in his 36 innings pitched so far, but all have been of the solo variety. Meanwhile the shaky-of-late bullpen came through big, shutting down the Astros for 3 1/3 innings and striking out 7. Austin Adams fanned all 4 batters he faced, Alvarado got a big K of Alvarez and with Anderson and Hand tired, Diego Castillo snapped out of his funk with a 2-K 9th inning for his second save. For the offense, it was Bohms away again as Alec went 3 for 4 with a HR, double and RBI single. Whit Merrifield had a bases-clearing double in the key 5th inning when the Rays took advantage of a Lance McCullers Jr. error to break open the game. By the way OOTP apparently thinks the world of McCullers, he's gone 31-7 in the season and a half simmed so far before losing today.
(Incidentally I had a no-hitter today in my MLB world but it was probably the first time a combined no hitter has consisted of the starter going 8 2/3 and a reliever getting the final out. Nate Pearson walked 2, fanned 15 and threw 113 pitches, but the AI let Kevin Ginkel get the final out of Toronto's 2-0 win over Detroit)
Team record: 52-32.
June 29-July 1 vs Chicago White Sox (3)
Game 1: This one was a laugher, the final 13-4 Rays as they jumped on Dallas Keuchel for 4 runs in the 1st and by the time it was done everyone in the lineup had at least one hit except Cafecito, who walked and scored twice. Meadows was 3-4 with a HR and 4 runs scored, Renfroe homered and drove in 4, Bohm had 3 more hits including 2 doubles, Sal Perez had his first two Rays RBIs and even Freddy Galvis launched a HR into the touch tank. The beneficiary of all this support was Ryan Yarbrough. Filling in for Snell, he went 5.2 4 2 1 1 6. Only a couple of the 9th inning solo HRs allowed by Trevor Richards blemished the team pitching line.
Game 2: Well the script got kind of flipped here. Like last night, the Rays jumped out early to a 4-0 lead off brief former teammate Jake Woodford but despite a constant stream of baserunners in the middle innings, couldn't add to the lead. Chirinos meanwhile pitched quite well, leaving with a 4-2 lead after a 6 7 2 2 0 8 line. But the bullpen imploded again, Castillo loaded the bases with one out for Nick Anderson to come in and allow a 2-run single to Yoan Moncada and then a 3-run HR to Yasmani Grandal. The Rays loaded the bases with nobody out against Sox closer Ian Kennedy, but Ji-Man grounded into a DP and Bohm popped out and 7-5 was the final. This despite the team banging out 13 hits including 3 apiece for Jose Martinez and Renfroe (one of which was HR #30 as he seeks to beat last year's total of 41).
Glasnow update: The four weeks passed without incident so he was sent to Durham for a rehab assignment. In his first rehab start against Norfolk he was anything but effective, putting up a 2.2 7 3 3 2 3 line which took him 65 pitches before I pulled him (I managed the game for Durham). We'll see how he fares in five days time on his next rehab start. Meanwhile, top pitching prospect Shane McClanahan relieved him after a recent promotion to AAA and went 3.1 1 0 0 1 6. Not too shabby.