Made a big trade:
Shimizu's days were always going to be numbered as we had both
Bobby Marin and
Luis Berumen waiting in the wings, and I was pleasantly surprised at what I was being offered around the league for him. The best offer came from Cleveland in Charlton and as you can see I took it, but we really don't have a spot for him as he's a 1B/DH and we already have
Nate Strickland and
Joe Stack covering those positions quite well. Still you can't turn down this type of player:
A beast of a hitter who was having a great year with the Guardians, Charlton will be on our club but is going to have a hard time finding at-bats especially as he's a lefty hitter like Strickland and Stack. If we're cash-strapped at season's end like we were this past offseason I can see dealing Strickland who becomes arb-eligible this winter for whatever we might need as I'm sure he'd fetch a lot. For now
Mike Calhoun goes to Durham and Marin comes up to take Shimizu's LF job against RHP. Oh and one of the owner goals was to acquire a power hitter, so this should fill the bill.
As for the games we had a 2-game set with the team we're chasing in the AL East and it's as you were, 1 1/2 behind Toronto, after a split.
The opener was a tough pill to swallow as
Mike Moore gave up a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 9th to let Toronto walk off a 3-2 win. Moore dropped to 3-3 and blew his 5th save of the season as his grip on the closer's role is starting to get shaky, especially with
Devon Williams brought on board.
Randy Morris started and went 4.1 6 1 1 2 3 and needed to be rescued from a 5th-inning jam which he was, and the rest of the pen held the 2-1 lead all the way until the 9th.
Arturo Gutierrez hit HR #24 for one of the two Tampa Bay scores tonight. And we did something I've almost never had one of my teams do in all my saves:
The first of course in this save. In the 7th with
Wes Mendes pitching and men on 1st and 2nd, Vlad Jr. lined one right at
Danny Arroyave at 3B with the runners going and we went 5-4-3 to turn it. Sadly it ended up being for naught.
The Rays were up against their former longtime star Kelly Crumpton in the second game, literally as Crumpton has resumed being a 2-way player since joining Toronto and got the start tonight. Of course he knows quite well how lethal the Tampa Bay lineup can be and he found out firsthand again at his own expense as he was tagged for 4 runs on 3 homers in 5 innings and the Rays took a 6-1 win.
Orlando Tosado had a monster night, going 4-4, homering twice to give him 17 (once off Crumpton), tripling and driving in 3 runs. Also taking Crumpton deep were
William Contreras (#5) and
Nate Strickland (#22). Meanwhile on the mound
Chris Ferguson (7-4) was outstanding at 7 4 1 1 1 5 and
Devon Williams rebounded from his terrible Rays debut to pitch a pair of scoreless innings.
Team record: 47-31. Next up: Another 2-gamer, this time in Boston.