June 28: Placed OF Jose Mendez on the 10-day IL with a pulled abdominal muscle, recalled OF Josh Alexander from AAA Durham.
Mendez pulled the muscle playing golf. Alexander gets the call instead of Ray Cervantes, not so much because Cervantes hasn't hit since he went down (he has) but I wanted to get a look at Alexander, who still projects to be a 290/400/590 guy despite some ups and downs at Durham. Like fellow young OFs Ben Hill and Cervantes, Alexander is a really lousy defensive OF though.
Game 1: Josh Alexander made an impressive MLB debut and Tim Gates turned in his second fine start in a row as the Rays handled the Pirates 7-1 at PNC Park. The rookie doubled and scored in his first at-bat in the 2nd and then made it 4-0 Rays in the 3rd with a 3-run homer in his 2nd trip. The still-boiling-hot Daniel Vasquez added a 3-run blast (#22) in the 6th. Gates meanwhile cruised through his outing, finishing 7 5 1 1 2 5 and improving to 9-3, 4.56.
Game 2: The Rays took a 2-0 first-inning lead on solo homers from Daniel Malone (#11) and Danny Ayala (#16) but that was good as it got for them as the Pirates jumped all over Ron Adams and pummeled the Rays 9-3. Adams cruised through the first two innings but gave up 4 in the 3rd and 3 more in the 4th and saw his ERA jump to 4.11 and his record drop to 7-5.
Game 3: Rinse and repeat. Once again the Rays took a quick 2-0 lead, tonight on Jimmy Leonard's 19th homer, but Jon Harbour lost his way in the 4th allowing 4 runs, and the Rays dropped the series to Pittsburgh with a 5-2 loss. The bats were held to 3 hits on the night in a sad performance and they finished June on an 8-7 skid (hey it's a "skid" by their standards) and were a mediocre 15-11 for the month.
Team record: 55-26. Next up: 3 games in Baltimore.
No surprise here, considering how ludicrously hot he was although his 20-game hitting streak was snapped in the last game:
