The 2020 (and beyond) Tampa Bay Rays - Page 8

Art Deco · 08-07-2020, 07:29 PM

That should read *at* Texas above.

Been remiss in providing the updated MLB standings. No real drama in the NL with the divisions in hand and the wild cards as well (Mets and Padres). Once again the AL Central stinks with Minnesota the best of a bad lot, and of course a great division race in the west as well as a pretty wide open wild card race with the west loser and Houston and Boston battling it out for the second spot. You'll note some familiar names among the leaders, like Mike Brosseau 2nd in the league in WAR which falls into the "Things Nobody Could Have Foreseen for $200, Alex" category. Also Xavier Edwards is 2nd in steals, which was quite foreseeable. And it's good to see that Taylor Walls made it as Houston's utility guy, and he has a current 18-game hitting streak to boot. And how about Cory Bellinger, tied with Maris in the NL. We'll see him next week as we start this road trip in Texas and then hang out in LA for a while with a series with the Angels and then 2 games with the Dodgers.

Also of course we have the MLB record of 116 wins in sight, we'd have to go 12-5 the rest of the way to break it which just happens to be our current winning percentage. Those two games against the Dodgers won't help.

Game 1: Noah Syndergaard was masterful going 9 5 0 0 0 6 to improve to 18-4, 3.23 in a 3-0 shutout of the Texas Rangers, his second whitewashing of the season in a history-making win for the Rays. After allowing a Stephen Wrenn double with two out in the fifth, Syndergaard only allowed one baserunner after that, a HBP in the 9th. Rangers starter Tadaomi Akamine nearly matched him pitch-for-pitch, with the Rays clinging to a slender 1-0 lead on Wander's 33rd HR of the year in the first inning going into the top of the 9th. Finally with two out they broke through against reliever Ricky Vanasco when Alec Bohm walked with two out, scored on a Seth Beer double, and then Beer scored on Yusniel Diaz's double. Even with that late outburst, the Rays only managed 5 hits on the night themselves, but in any event the win was #106 on the year, breaking the club record of 105 set last season and keeping alive hopes of breaking the MLB record of 116.

Game 2: It was the Keibert Ruiz show at Globe Life Field tonight as the Rays all-star catcher belted 3 homers and drove in 6 to pace the team to a 9-3 win. I believe this is the first 3-HR game I've had from a player since managing the Rays, and he did it in his first 3 at-bats and nearly had a fourth but flew out to deep right. The Rays jumped all over Texas starter Ross Stripling in the top of the 1st. For the second straight day Wander homered in the first inning (#34), then Austin Meadows followed with #32. Rafael Devers singled, and Ruiz hit the first of his three to make it 4-0. Keibert hit his second in the 3rd, a 3-run shot to make it 7-1, and then Devers (#23) and he went back-to-back off Addison Moss in the 5th to make it 9-1. The 3 homers give Keibert 21 for the season, and while he probably won't equal last year's 28 to be where he is considering he only had about 5 or 6 well into June is impressive. Sitting back and watching all this run support roll in was Chris Paddack, who was outstanding in his own right going 7 6 1 1 0 6 to improve to 15-6, 3.78. Aaron Ashby and Scott Barlow finished it out and unsurprisingly allowed a couple of runs between them, although a Wander error was responsible for one.

Game 3: If our all-star catcher isn't going to beat you, his backup will. That was the story today as Ronaldo Hernandez had a big game and the key at-bats in a come-from-behind 7-5 win over Texas. With the Rays trailing 5-4 in the 6th, Ronaldo homered off Tarik Skubal to tie the game, and in the 8th his sac fly brought home the winning run. He also had an RBI groundout earlier and continues to rake in infrequent play, now 293/325/578 with 11 HR and 25 RBI in 147 AB. Skubal looked unhittable very early, setting down the first 8 Rays with 4 of them on strikeouts before Trevor Larnach got a lefty-on-lefty hit off him and Vidal Brujan hit #13 to put them up 2-0. But Max Fried kept giving the lead back, allowing 2 in the bottom of the third and then when the Rays scored 2 more in the 4th on doubles by Devers and Bohm and Ronaldo's groundout, Fried let Texas get 3 more in the bottom of the inning to take the lead, and finished an ugly 4.2 9 5 5 3 3 line. But Jasseel De La Cruz was great again, whiffing 3 in 1 2/3 scoreless, Alvarado got the two batters he faced, one on a strikeout, in the 7th and picked up win #5, Nick Anderson struck out the side around a walk and a hit in the 8th, and Will Smith nailed down save #36 despite allowing a walk. The march towards history rolls on, with the team now needing to go 9-5 in its final 14 to set the all-time MLB single-season wins record.

Team record: 108-40.

Minor League Playoff Update: Montgomery missed the playoffs in AA this year, but defending IL champ Durham is back. Durham had an outstanding 84-56 record yet they finished *10* games behind Gwinnett, the Braves' AAA team, who went a Rays-like 94-46. So as a result they're matched up against each other with Durham as the wild card and Gwinnett the #1 seed. Tonight was Game 1 of the best-of-5 in Gwinnett and Durham pulled out a 7-5 win in 11 innings to take command. Greg Jones' 2-run triple was the game-winning hit, Dany Jimenez (remember him?) got the win with 2 innings of scoreless relief, and flamethrower Sandy Gaston (71 Ks in 33.2 innings although with a 5.35 ERA) whiffed a pair for the save. Spencer Torkelson had a HR and 3 RBI, and Heston Kjerstad, who had an MVP-caliber season at Montgomery going 309/385/550 with 25 HR and 102 RBI and was promoted to take Trevor Larnach's place in RF, was 3-4 with a triple, a HR and 2 RBI. Durham had fallen behind 3-0, 4-3, and 5-4 but kept coming back. Clarke Schmidt hung in there at 6 8 4 4 2 9 to keep them in the game. Shane Baz gets the ball tomorrow in Game 2.

Art Deco · 08-08-2020, 01:47 PM

Game 1: The Rays used up one of the 5 losses they can suffer if they want to break the MLB single-season wins record as they fell 6-2 to the Angels today. Of course the Angels have more important matters to play for as they remain neck-and-neck with Seattle for the AL West lead and Garrett Williams was dominant today for LA. He went 5.1 4 1 1 2 9 in 103 pitches, an impressive performance given how tough as a team the Rays are to strike out. Daniel Lynch on the other hand was far from impressive, knocked around for 10 hits in 4.2 innings and allowing 5 runs, although only 2 were earned. Shane McClanahan, though, could have helped his line had he not surrendered a lefty-on-lefty 2-run double by Billy McKinney, the first batter he faced, which turned a 3-1 game into a 5-1 game. Dustin May allowed an inherited McClanahan runner to score in the 7th but otherwise pitched 2 scoreless innings in his first relief appearance. Austin Meadows' RBI single was the offense as the other run scored on a wild pitch. Trevor Larnach got another start against a lefty but this one didn't go so well, 0-4 and whiffing all four times up (although he did have another outfield assist). When Brandon Marsh comes back the answer to "Schnell or Larnach?" might just be Yusniel Diaz.

Durham Playoff Update: Shane Baz had a brutal first inning, allowing 4 runs on 6 hits, and the Gwinnett Stripers built a 5-2 lead in the 5th, but it didn't matter to the Bulls as they came back from a big early deficit once again to score a 9-5 win and take a commanding 2-0 lead in their best-of-5 first round playoff series. In the 6th the Bulls scored 7 runs before Gwinnett could get an out, capped by a 3-run Hunter Bishop blast. Tyler Frank had the big hit before that, a 2-run double to go with an earlier RBI double. Austin Franklin (remember him too?) pitched 2 1/3 innings in relief of Baz (who gamely made it through 4 2/3) to pick up the win and Tyler Zombro had 2 scoreless innings to finish it off. And finish it off is what the Bulls hope to do in two nights' time behind Asa Lacy.

Game 2: The more things change....

This real-life 2020 headline from a couple of days ago immediately sprung to mind in tonight's game as on the heels of lefty Garrett Williams shutting them down, lefty Yohander Mendez (who came into the game with an ERA near 5) went 8 6 1 1 1 2 in a 2-1 win over the Rays, seriously damaging their hopes of setting the MLB wins record. For 6 innings though it looked once again like Tyler Glasnow might be the story as he had another potential no-hitter going, although with a few walks and 8 strikeouts mixed in he was already at 100 pitches entering the 7th. But Mike Trout led off the inning with a long HR to tie the game though Glasnow ended a still-spectacular 7 1 1 1 3 10. Jasseel De La Cruz pitched around a hit and a walk to lead off the 8th but the wheels came off in the bottom of the 9th with Jose Alvarado, who walked the first three batters he faced to load the bases. With the infield in, he got Anthony Rizzo to hit a grounder right at Alec Bohm at 1B and get the force at the plate, and Nick Anderson came on in hopes of striking out Nelson Cruz. Instead Cruz singled to right and the game was over. The lone Rays run came in the first when Austin Meadows doubled with two out and Rafael Devers singled him home. They had a chance to retake the lead in the 8th when with one out Nick Schnell doubled and Vidal Brujan had an infield single, but Wander grounded into a double play. Meanwhile, with the scoreless inning De La Cruz extended his Rays scoreless streak to 18 2/3 innings, and Glasnow with his performance today lowers his AL-leading ERA to 3.07. This is also the first time the Rays have lost two straight since August 6-7 vs Miami and Toronto.

Game 3: It was a miracle comeback until it wasn't and the Rays were swept as the Angels pulled off another walk-off win, 9-8. With 2 out in the top of the ninth the Rays trailed 8-4 but Rafael Devers hit a grand slam to equalize. Jasseel De La Cruz came on for the 9th and picked a fine time to give up his first Rays run as he allowed Nick Solak to lead off with a single and then wild-pitched him to 2nd. Mike Trout was intentionally walked, bringing up Anthony Rendon, and De La Cruz threw another wild pitch to put the winning run on 3rd and Rendon singled him home. The big news for the Rays (aside their hopes of the MLB win record pretty much going by the wayside) was that Noah Syndergaard had to leave the game with an oblique strain which came on the last batter he was facing anyway. The report says "DtD (minimal) 2 weeks" so obviously we're not going to fool around with it and his regular season is over but he should be over it come playoff time. In his final regular season outing (most assuredly as a Ray, as we aren't going to be able to afford to re-sign him) he had a strange game, yielding 3 HRs and going 6 8 7 4 0 10. The three unearned runs came as a result of his own fielding error and it was a game where he was hard to hit at times, but when he was hit it was hard including 3 HRs allowed. In addition to the Devers slam, the Rays had HRs from Triston Casas (#12) and Trevor Larnach (#3), and a Meadows sac fly. The Devers slam made him the third Ray to go over 100 RBI at 102, joining Wander at 114 and Meadows at 103. Speaking of Wander, he had a brutal weekend going 0-14 in the three games and has fallen well behind Vlad Jr for the AL WAR lead now. Yusniel also was 0-for-LA and is in a 1-19 slump of his own, so with the HR today the arrow is pointing up for Larnach in the 3rd OF spot derby. Syndergaard's regular season ends at 18-4, 3.31 with a 33/186 BB/K ratio in 204 innings and 4.2 WAR.

Team record: 108-43.

Durham Playoff Update: The Bulls advance to the Championship Round after sweeping mighty Gwinnett with a 6-0 win. Asa Lacy pitched his first professional shutout, going 9 4 0 0 1 6 on 104 pitches, and Durham broke open a scoreless game by scoring 6 runs with 2 out in the 6th. It marked the second straight game they had a lengthy rally in which Gwinnett couldn't retire anyone. With two out, Chris Betts singled, Wil Myers walked, Tyler Frank had an RBI single, Greg Jones doubled in Myers, Owen Miller singled in Frank and Jones, Spencer Torkelson walked, and then Hunter Bishop doubled in Miller and Torkelson. That was more than enough for Lacy, and the Bulls will play the Indianapolis-Scranton winner in the final round. Here's hoping the "Tampa Bay organization team sweeps the first round of the playoffs" omen is stronger than the "Team with best record by far is swept in the opening round" omen.

Art Deco · 08-08-2020, 07:58 PM

Game 1: The baseball world was talking up this 2-game series as a possible World Series preview, and the game itself had a postseason feel as it was tightly played with plenty of drama and a raucous Dodger Stadium crowd. The Rays ended up prevailing 7-4 in 10 innings, so a World Series preview is just fine with me. It was Chris Paddack against Alex Wood and both starters were gone by the 6th inning. Paddack recovered from allowing the first batter he faced, Jeren Kendall, to take him deep and ended with a 5 8 2 2 0 5 line. In fact it was Paddack who got the offense going as the former Padre with hitting experience doubled off Wood in the 3rd and scored when Vidal Brujan doubled him home. Brujan scored on a Meadows groundout to give the Rays a brief lead, but Gavin Lux doubled home Cody Bellinger to tie it. They grabbed the lead back in the 6th when Rafael Devers doubled and scored on a Yusniel Diaz sac fly and made it 4-2 in the 7th when Devers singled in Brujan, who had stolen second. Aaron Ashby got the call in the 6th over TJ McFarland with several lefties in the Dodger lineup and got through it despite a couple of runners, but Jose Alvarado served up Cody Bellinger's 63rd HR of the year to cut it to 4-3. Nick Anderson entered for the 8th, and then he gave up a leadoff homer to Will Smith (the catcher) and we were suddenly tied. Will Smith (the pitcher) struck out the side in the 9th and off to extras we went. Edwin Diaz had mowed down the Rays in the top of the 9th but things went very differently in the tenth against him as Devers went the opposite way inside the LF foul pole for his fourth hit of the game and 25th HR of the season, and then after Keibert singled, Alec Bohm drilled #36 into the LF stands to make it 7-4 and joined Wander, Meadows and Devers in the 100-RBI club with 101. Smith stayed on for a second inning after a reasonable pitch count in the 9th and got the Dodgers in order with one more K for his 3rd win of the season. It was quite the game, and the win keeps their faint record hopes alive as they still need to go 8-2 in the final 10 games to win 117.

Game 2: It looked like the Rays' domination of the Dodgers would continue as Austin Meadows had a 2-run HR and Keibert Ruiz followed suit with one against his old battery mate Walker Buehler to make it 3-0 in the first, but that was as good as it got for them tonight in an 8-3 loss. Max Fried had another ugly outing, going 4 10 7 7 2 4 and giving up HRs to Corey Seager, Josh Bell and Gavin Lux. Shane McClanahan looked his best in quite a while with 2 hitless innings with 3 Ks in relief, but TJ McFarland had to leave with a tired arm that will keep him out 2 weeks and perhaps off the playoff roster. After the rough first inning, Buehler settled in and got some revenge for his pasting in Tropicana Field earlier this year, going 8 7 3 3 1 4. In addition to his home run, Keibert threw out all 3 Dodger runners trying to steal tonight or it could have been worse. Wander had 3 hits including a couple of doubles to break out of his mini-slump but Yusniel Diaz continues cold after being pushed into an everyday role, going 0-4 again today.

Team record: 109-44.

Art Deco · 08-09-2020, 11:02 AM

September 22: Placed P TJ McFarland on the 15-day IL with a tired arm, activated OF Brandon Marsh from the 10-day IL.

Game 1: The late-season swoon continues as the Rays drop their fifth game in six, 5-2 to Boston despite a fine effort from Tyler Glasnow. Through 6 the Rays led 1-0 on a Seth Beer HR (#21) and Glasnow had 2-hit the Sox, striking out 9. But he got himself into trouble in the 7th by walking Alex Verdugo and Ryan Mountcastle, and Verdugo came around to score on a sac fly by Xander Bogaerts for the second out. That would have been manageable except he then gave up a 2-run HR to Willians Astudillo to make it 3-1 and that was the ballgame. Ty Buttrey gave up a HR to 20-power-rated Travis Jankowski to make it 4-1, and Scott Barlow of course gave up a run, a HR to Mountcastle. The Rays meanwhile were mostly shackled by Pablo Lopez. After he put a couple of runners on in the ninth, Boston closer Durbin Feltman came on and proceeded to walk Alec Bohm to load the bases and then he walked Beer to force in a run. But Nick Schnell hit a line drive to Bogaerts and he doubled up Bohm off 2nd base to end the game. Lopez held the Rays to 8.1 6 2 2 1 7 while Glasnow was 7 3 3 3 2 10. The loss means the Rays have to win their final 8 to set the MLB single-season wins record, an unlikely outcome.

Durham Playoff Update: The Bulls rolled in Game 1 of the best-of-5 International League Championship Series, 7-4 over Indianapolis. Veteran Jose Abreu had the big hit, a 2-run double which broke a 3-3 tie in the 5th inning. Chris Betts was 2-4 with his 1st HR of the postseason and another vet, Wil Myers, was 2-4 with 2 RBI. Clarke Schmidt got the win although he struggled at times, going 5 6 3 3 3 7 and allowing a pair of homers. But Austin Franklin and Tyler Zombro combined for 4 innings of quality relief as the Bulls remain undefeated this postseason.

Game 2: Dustin May stole the show today with 7 shutout innings as the Rays edged the Red Sox 3-2. May was in control from the start, retiring the first 12 Red Sox before Ryan Mountcastle singled off him to lead off the 5th. And when did give up some hits, he consistently got the ground ball (12 in total) to get out of it. He went 7 5 0 0 0 7 to go to 3-1 in a performance worthy of the man he's replacing in the rotation at the moment, Noah Syndergaard. Nick Anderson relieved him in the 8th and gave up a longball for the second straight outing. After allowing a one-out double to Niko Goodrum, Anderson served up a 2-run HR to our good friend Abraham Toro to make it a 1-run game but he struck out Randal Grichuk and a tough customer in Alex Verdugo to end the inning. Will Smith issued a one-out walk, but immediately got pinch-hitter Jeter Downs to ground into a twin killing to preserve the win and save #37. The Rays didn't generate that much offense against Matt Shoemaker; despite 10 hits against him they could manage only the 3 runs, which came on an Austin Meadows RBI double in the first, a Brandon Marsh RBI double in the 2nd, and a Wander infield single that brought home a run. Still it was enough for May and for win #110.

Durham Playoff Update: The Bulls have had a knack for digging themselves out of big holes, and fell behind 6-0 today when Shane Baz didn't have it today (4 5 5 5 4 6). They nearly pulled it out, losing 10-9 to Indianapolis with Jose Abreu being thrown out at the plate to end the game (really negligence on my part for not pinch-running for him in the 9th). Spencer Torkelson had 4 RBI, Tyler Frank was 4-5 with an RBI and Owen Miller was 3-4 with an RBI to pace the offense. The difference today was that the bullpen let them down - Grant Gambrell and Drew Strotman each allowed a pair of runs and Caleb Sampen allowed one, which meant as good as the offense was they were always playing from behind. The series now goes to Indy tied 1-1.

Game 3: The Rays managed to win a game they trailed for almost its entire length when Brandon Marsh drilled a 3-run HR into the RF stands off Jamie Callahan in bottom of the 8th, prevailing 5-4 and dealing a crippling blow to Boston's wild card hopes. Daniel Lynch got the start and it seemed like he was in trouble the entire time. The first two batters of the game scored when Jeter Downs took him deep in the 1st, and after the Rays tied it at 2 in the 2nd he loaded the bases with nobody out in the 3rd and walked Marcell Ozuna to force in a run. But he managed to get out of that jam with just the one run and he kept doing so until he left in the 6th, when Shane McClanahan got him out of his last jam. He went 5 6 3 3 4 6 but it could have been so much worse. It did get worse when Ty Buttrey allowed one of McClanahan's runners to score in the 7th to make it 4-2, although Buttrey got through the 8th, setting the stage for Marsh's heroics. After Triston Casas, getting a start at 1B today, singled off Alex Claudio, Callahan came on and got Ronaldo Hernandez to pop out, but he then walked Nick Schnell which brought up Marsh and the HR. Will Smith had a 1-2-3 9th to nail down save #38 while Buttrey got his 3rd Rays win. Earlier the Rays had scored in the first on Wander's 35th HR and a Brujan RBI single. Schnell meanwhile has reasserted himself as the frontrunner in the OF competition by reaching base 10 of his last 19 times up over his last 5 starts, going 7-16 with 3 walks and a pair of steals.

Also, the Minnesota Twins lost game #81 today to drop to 75-81. The significance of this is that as they lead the AL Central they (or somewhat less likely the Royals who are 2 1/2 behind them) will be the first MLB team to win a division with a record of .500 or (almost assuredly in this case) worse. The 2005 Padres won the NL West at 82-80 for the previous worst division-winning record. The Angels, who have almost wrapped up the West, will get quite the break getting to play the Twins or Royals. Meanwhile it's looking like a Seattle-Houston wild card game with the Rays of course playing the winner in the ALDS, although Boston is still hanging in there 1 1/2 behind Houston.

Game 4: It was another tight win for the Rays and another nail in Boston's postseason coffin as Chris Paddack did enough through 6 innings and the bullpen did enough over the last 3 to hang on to a 5-4 decision. Like Daniel Lynch yesterday Paddack gave up a HR to the second batter of the game but this time there was nobody on and Randal Grichuk's blast was all he allowed through 5. Meanwhile the offense built a 4-run lead on a Meadows RBI single in the third and a 4-run 4th that saw a tie-breaking 2-run shot by the hot Nick Schnell, a Wander RBI double and another Meadows RBI single. Paddack ran into trouble in the 6th allowing 2 runs and put the leadoff man on in the 7th. Jose Alvarado came in and got Xander Bogaerts to hit into a double play but then made a mess of his own, allowing another run on a walk and 2 hits. Nick Anderson struck out 2 around a walk in the 8th, and then with Will Smith having pitched in the last 2 games, Jasseel De La Cruz pitched the 9th and got his 2nd Rays save with a pair of strikeouts of his own. Paddack improves to 16-6 this season, and 27-6 as a Ray including last year's playoffs. The faint hopes of setting the MLB win record remain alive: they'll have to beat the Yankees the next two nights and sweep the final series of the season in Toronto over the weekend.

Team record: 112-45.

Durham Playoff Update: The Bulls are one win away from back-to-back International League titles as they edged Indianapolis 4-3 on the road in Game 3. Spencer Torkelson had a big night, on base all 5 times with a pair of RBI doubles and 3 walks, and Chris Betts had the big hit in the fifth breaking a 2-2 tie with his 2nd HR of the finals. Asa Lacy, who had a shutout in the first round, was excellent again today going 6 4 2 2 1 4 to pick up the win, and Sandy Gaston blew away Indy in the 9th striking out the side on 12 pitches for the save. Jimmy Lewis will get the Game 4 start tomorrow to hopefully wrap it up.

Art Deco · 08-09-2020, 06:09 PM

Game 1: Well, the bid to set the MLB single-season wins record is over as the Rays fell to the Yankees 5-1. Deivi Garcia shut them down over 8 innings, allowing 5 hits, 0 walks and 6 strikeouts with the only offense coming when Wander doubled in Nick Schnell in the 3rd. Max Fried looked really good through the first 4, gave up the tying run in the 5th, and then melted down in the 6th as he loaded the bases with nobody out, gave up a 2-run double to Aaron Hicks, and then Scott Barlow gave up a 2-run double (surprise) to make it 5-1. After allowing those inherited runners to score Barlow did have 2 scoreless innings and partner in arson Aaron Ashby did likewise. Fried (5 6 5 5 3 7 today) has been really bad in September and is almost certainly the #4 starter now for the playoffs behind Chris Paddack. Now that the record win bid is over and the remaining 4 games are against non-contenders expect the bench to be emptied.

Durham Playoff Update: THE DURHAM BULLS ARE CHAMPIONS AGAIN! Back-to-back International League titles for the Bulls as they dramatically defeated Indianapolis today in Game 4 to take the series 3-1. Indianapolis led 1-0 going into the 9th when Heston Kjerstad led off with a single and then the ageless one, Jose Abreu, drilled a 2-run HR to LCF to put Durham up 2-1. Sandy Gaston came on for the ninth, gave up a leadoff single, the runner was bunted over, then he got a strikeout and groundball to 2nd to start the celebrations. Jimmy Lewis got the start and gave up an early homer for the Indy run but pitched well considering it had been a couple of weeks since his last outing as he wasn't needed in the Round 1 sweep, going 6 3 1 1 3 3. Tyler Zombro got the win with 2 scoreless innings of relief. Tyler Frank was named the Series MVP, he was 9 for 17 in the 4 games with 3 hits today. A side note: Abreu's HR came off Graeme Stinson, and if that name sounds familiar he was one of the Rays farmhands included in the Josh Bell deal last year. He had a brief stint with the Pirates this year and had a really good season, although he won't be happy with the way it ended.

Game 2: Perhaps it was the pressure of going for the win record being lifted or perhaps it was regression for Shawn Semple after he had shut down the Rays earlier in the season, but the Rays had a laugher tonight, blasting the Yankees 10-0. Well it was a laugher until the laughs stopped when Brandon Marsh had to leave the game after making a diving catch in center. It turns out he has a sprained ankle and will miss 13 days. As the first playoff game is in 8-9 days, he'll probably be kept on the playoff roster and ready to go in Game 3 of the ALDS. As for the game itself, Tyler Glasnow had his final tuneup before the playoffs and looked quite good, going 6 3 0 0 1 7 on 78 pitches and reaching the 200-inning mark for the first time in his career. He ends with an AL-leading 3.01 ERA to go with a 17-7 record and 242 Ks in those 200 1/3 innings. Shane McClanahan completed the shutout with 3 scoreless innings, nabbing his 2nd save of the year. The offense largely came in an 8-run 3rd inning eruption which featured back-to-back-to-back HRs. The first in the series was from Nick Schnell, a 2-run shot as part of a monster night for him where he went 4-5 with that HR and 4 RBI with a 2-run double in the fifth getting the other two runs. There's not much doubt now that he will claim the open OF job for the playoffs, at least against righties, and even against lefties until Marsh comes back. The next HR came from Alec Bohm (#37), followed by Seth Beer (#22). Wander had started the scoring in the inning by tripling in Marsh, and then capped it with a sac fly, giving him 120 RBI. Rylan Bannon and Marsh also had RBI singles in the 8-run inning. Also of note, the 10 runs came with a big chunk of the offense (Meadows, Devers, Keibert, Brujan) getting the day off.

Team record: 113-46.

AL Playoff Race Update: The Minnesota Twins continue to lose, and continue to lead the AL Central at a ridiculous 75-83, meaning the Central winner won't even win 80 games. And speaking of ridiculous, Kansas City pulled to within 1 1/2 games of the Twins by scoring 8(!) times in the bottom of the 9th to beat Atlanta with Khalil Lee hitting a walk-off grand slam off AJ Minter to give them a 12-9 victory. Meanwhile, Houston lost and Boston won, so the Sox are within a game of the Astros for the second wild card. Seattle looks solid for the first, and the Angels are on the verge of clinching the West and getting to play a sub-.500 team in the ALDS. The NL is all set as it has been for days/weeks, the Mets will play San Diego in the WC game for the right to face Atlanta in one NLDS and the Dodgers will host the Cardinals in the other.

It's also retirement time around the game: Elvis Andrus, Justin Turner, Blake Treinen, Ian Kennedy, and Mike Minor all hung up their cleats today.

Also, HAHAHAHAHA!

Art Deco · 08-10-2020, 09:11 AM

AL Playoff Race update from the off-day: Boston lost and Houston won, so they're 2 back with 3 games to go, so looking bleak for the Red Sox in other words. And the AL Central looks like this now with 3 games to go:

Minnesota is at Kansas City this weekend while Detroit plays the red-hot White Sox.

Game 1: Ronaldo Hernandez and Yusniel Diaz each went deep twice to lead the Rays to an 8-5 win over the Jays. Hernandez had a solo shot in the 4th off Chris Archer, a 3-run blast in the 5th off Archer as well, and had a bases-loaded walk in the 7th to cap a 5-RBI day. Diaz homered in the 2nd and preceded Ronaldo's HR in the 4th with one of his own. The two knocked in 7 of the Rays' 8 runs with Rylan Bannon getting the other on an infield single. Dustin May got the start and had a very rough first, giving up a leadoff shot to Cavan Biggio and allowing another run without getting an out as the next 3 batters singled. But he settled in after that, allowing only more run as he went 5.2 7 3 3 3 5 to go 4-1 as a Ray. Aaron Ashby looked really good, striking out the first three men he faced in a perfect 1 1/3 outing, Ty Buttrey didn't, giving up a 2-run HR to Ryan Noda, so with the lead cut to 8-5 Will Smith pitched the 9th and got save #39.

AL Playoff Update: Well all the suspense was leached out of the playoff race tonight as Minnesota beat Kansas City 6-4 and Detroit lost to the White Sox meaning the Twins are 2 up with 2 games left. It's possible the Royals win the last two to force a playoff but not quite the chaos we were hoping for. Meanwhile the Red Sox were bombed 10-4 at Fenway by Baltimore, effectively killing their playoff hopes. Houston needs only one win in the next 2 days or one Boston loss to clinch the second wild card.

Wander Franco contract extension? Wander Franco contract extension:

He was going to get paid this offseason in arbitration, so we've bought out the arb years and a year of free agency as well. He'll be a free agent at 26; if he keeps up this performance, he could be the first $50M player. I could have gone longer but I'm a bit wary of very long contracts and I could use a rebuilding challenge down the line.

Game 2: The Rays fell 7-3 to the Jays as the goal remains for nobody to get hurt. Meadows, Devers, Keibert and Brujan all sat today and Daniel Lynch got the start. Lynch was terrible again, and although he somehow managed to strike out Vlad Jr. twice he couldn't get anyone else out and had a hard time finding the plate, ending 2.2 5 7 7 6 4. He won't be on the playoff roster. Wander homered on the first pitch he saw to celebrate his extension, #36 on the season, and Alec Bohm hit #38. Yusniel Diaz is heating up again, which is good because he's starting at least the first 2 games of the ALDS in CF. He was 2-4 with an RBI for the other Rays run. Scott Barlow relieved Lynch and had perhaps his best Rays outing, going 3 1/3 with only 1 hit and 0 runs allowed although he still hasn't met an inherited runner he couldn't let score as his first pitch coming in was a wild one, allowing the 7th Jays run to cross the plate. Ty Buttrey and Aaron Ashby had perfect innings finishing out the game. The loss means they won't tie the MLB single-season wins record, either, but the real measure of success for this team will be starting in less than a week.

AL Playoff Race Update: Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in. KC bombed Minnesota 11-2 to pull back within a game, and Detroit won as well meaning we could have a 3-way tie if KC beats Minnesota and Detroit wins also tomorrow. Or Minnesota could win and that would be that. Houston clinched the second wild card when the Red Sox fell again at home to Baltimore, but suddenly the AL West title is very much in play as those same Astros beat LA. If Houston beats LA again and Seattle knocks off Oakland, the Angels and Mariners would also be tied for first place. The Astros have nothing to play for as they're locked into the #2 wild card, so I'm going to have to manage them tomorrow to make sure they don't use Forrest Whitley. Ditto for San Diego as they have Mackenzie Gore scheduled to pitch and he would be the WC starter.

Game 3: What have I kept saying about the goal being not to get anyone hurt? Chris Paddack started today and the plan was to get him through 5 innings and let De La Cruz, Anderson, Alvarado and Smith pitch an inning each to tune up for the playoffs. Well those plans went out the window when Paddack had to leave after the first inning with back spasms which will put him out a week. Fortunately, he wasn't going to be used until Game 3 which will either be a week from today or the day after. So Shane McClanahan came on and I was hoping to get 3-4 innings from him. He only made it 1 2/3 before he too had to leave with back spasms (maybe I should hire a team chiropractor), only a 3-day injury. This meant I had to turn to De La Cruz for some length and he went 2 1/3 scoreless throwing 47 pitches. A tired Ty Buttrey pitched a scoreless 6th, and Alvarado and Anderson made it unscathed through the 8th. Will Smith came on in a non-save situation in the ninth as the Rays were up 5-0 and did not do well at all, giving up 2 HRs for 3 runs, walking one and hitting a batter in 2/3 of an inning so he came out and a tired Scott Barlow actually got the last out with a strikeout for his 3rd Rays save in the 5-3 win. The offense came mostly via the longball: Triston Casas had a 2-run shot off Rick Porcello in the 2nd, his 13th in 141 AB, Keibert hit #23 in the 3rd and Seth Beer also hit #23 in the 5th. The fifth run came on a Yusniel Diaz triple and Trevor Larnach groundout. Yusniel stayed hot with a double to go with that triple and hopefully he can keep it going in the ALDS. I was hoping to get Paddack to 200 innings and 200 Ks, instead he ends with 197 of each. McClanahan got his 8th win in the 8-pitcher parade, and if the Rays needed a reminder that anything can happen in postseason Jordan Romano (who beat them twice in last year's ALDS) came on in relief and pitched 3 1/3 scoreless innings.

Final Regular Season Record: 115-47. Not too shabby, but it's 0-0 tomorrow.

AL Playoff Update: In the race for the West title, the Angels missed a chance to take care of business for themselves by losing to Houston 7-6 in 11 innings but still won the division when Seattle lost in the late innings to Oakland, 5-3. This means Houston will travel to Seattle for the AL Wild Card Game, it should be Forrest Whitley vs Touki Toussaint. Seattle's ace, Marco Gonzales, has been out awhile with a foot injury and will miss the playoffs. As for the terrible AL Central, well this was always bound to happen:

Gonna see how OOTP deals with 3-way ties, should be interesting.

Art Deco · 08-10-2020, 04:28 PM

So it turns out the 3-way AL Central tiebreaker will work as thus: KC & Minnesota play today, and then the winner will host Detroit in one game for the spot. I'll have that KC-Minnesota game in a little bit after some other stuff.

Hey look, another elite OF prospect. Maybe OOTP's "league evolution" feature can involve adding a 4th outfielder and 10-man lineups.

Here are the final team stats and their rankings in the AL. Not much change from earlier postings of this report, you go 115-47 and you should be near the top in most categories.

Final hitting stats, sorted by WAR. I find it amusing that Albert Almora Jr. had almost as much WAR in 8 games as Max Kepler had in 71:

Final pitching stats, sorted by ERA:

The first AL tiebreaker game:

Minnesota will now host Detroit tomorrow for the AL Central title.

Art Deco · 08-10-2020, 05:32 PM

Congrats to the Twins, who led most of the way this season before slumping badly at the end and dropping into 3-team tiebreaker, only to turn things around and win it:

Zac Gallen, who came into the game with a 6.13 ERA, went 8.1 5 0 0 0 7 and Zack Littell struck out the final 2 for the save to outduel Detroit ace Matt Manning. Nick Gordon singled home Miguel Sano with the game's only run. Minnesota will now travel to Anaheim to play the Angels in the ALDS.

Also I lost track of this in all of the tiebreaking madness but congrats to Vlad Jr.:

He should grab his second straight MVP, he led the AL in WAR as well with 8.4.

Art Deco · 08-10-2020, 06:53 PM

Because of the double tiebreaker round in the AL Central, OOTP pushed back the start of the playoffs to Thursday for NL Wild Card Game and Friday for the AL Wild Card Game, meaning the NLDS should start on the Saturday and the ALDS on Sunday. This is great news for the Rays as Brandon Marsh should be ready to play in at least Game 2, if not Game 1, and Chris Paddack's back spasms will be long gone by the time Game 3 is played.

Here's the NL game:

It was a great pitchers' duel between a 20-game winner from this year (Michel Baez) and one from last year (Sandy Alcantara). Baez went 7 3 1 1 3 6 and Alcantara 7 6 1 1 1 8. Taylor Trammell led off the game with a HR for San Diego and then the Mets equalized on a Pete Alonso RBI single in the 4th. It stayed that way until Rhys Hoskins, thrown out at 3rd in the 7th trying to stretch a double into a triple (and seeing the next batter double), atoned for his earlier mistake by hitting a 2-run HR off Corey Knebel and closer Jose Castillo locked it down to send the Padres off to the NLDS to play Atlanta. It marked the second time in four years these teams met in the NL Wild Card game, with San Diego also winning in 2020. It was also the third NL Wild Card game in four years for the Mets; they won the 2021 game against Washington, and were division winners in 2022.

And here's the AL Wild Card Game:

It will be the Seattle Mariners and former Ray utility infielder-turned-superstar Michael Brousseau coming to St. Pete in a couple of days' time for the ALDS after a tense 1-0 win over Houston. Touki Touissant was electric, pitching a 4-hit shutout on 119 pitches, walking 3 and striking out 8 against a tough Astros lineup. Forrest Whitley had a 2-hitter of his own going into the 8th, but Evan White doubled, bringing on reliever Matt Barnes who gave up a single to Brosseau to put runners and 1st and 3rd, and then Yairo Munoz's sac fly to left scored White for the game's only run.

Art Deco · 08-10-2020, 07:37 PM

October 7:

In Atlanta, Mookie Betts was the man tonight with 2 doubles, a HR and 3 RBI as the Braves won a battle of aces with 22-game winner Mike Soroka coming out on top versus the Padres' Mackenzie Gore. Betts' solo HR in the 3rd got Atlanta on the board, and then a Jose Ramirez HR and 2-run double by Betts provided the margin of victory, breaking a 2-2 tie in the 6th.

In LA, another matchup of aces did not yield a low-scoring game as Jack Flaherty and Walker Buehler each had their troubles although Flaherty hung in there better, going 6 1/3 and striking out 11 despite allowing 4 runs on a couple of homers. Cody Bellinger, who led MLB with 65 HR this season, had one of the Dodgers' 4 longballs in a losing effort while Paul Goldschmidt, Tommy Edman, and Paul DeJong each had a pair of ribbies for the Cards.

Well this is just wonderful:

Freaking Game 162 injuries! At least I got the news in time to re-add Daniel Lynch to the playoff roster, at the expense of TJ McFarland. I'd still rather not have to start Lynch at all, though, so it looks like Max Fried will get the Game 3 start in Seattle. Hopefully he can turn his recent fortunes around. These are the projected pitching matchups:

Game 1, at home: Noah Syndergaard vs Justus Sheffield
Game 2, at home: Tyler Glasnow vs Logan Gilbert
Game 3, at Seattle: Max Fried vs Nick Margevicius
Game 4, at Seattle (if necessary): TBD (Daniel Lynch or Chris Paddack) vs Touki Touissant
Game 5, at home (if necessary): Noah Syndergaard vs Justus Sheffield

This is based on what I'm seeing on the upcoming schedule, but I would think we'd see Touissant in Game 3 since he'd be on full rest then.

October 8:

Game 1 (ugh):

One of these damn years I'm going to get over the playoff hump. It might still be this year. But it's not looking too good after this painful extra-inning loss to the Mariners in Game 1 at home. Noah Syndergaard got the start and was not the playoff ace I acquired him to be. He went 7 9 5 5 3 4, and was in trouble most of the night after striking out a pair in a scoreless first. Things went bad with 2 walks in the 2nd, the first scoring on Sam Hilliard's 2-run HR and the second coming around to score on a Jarred Kelenic single. Thankfully Vidal Brujan got those 3 runs right back after Rylan Bannon's popup was misplayed into a single, Nick Schnell singled, and then Brujan took Justus Sheffield deep into the LF stands. Austin Meadows followed with a 2-out double and went to third on a wild pitch, but Devers flew out to end the inning. Then Syndergaard gave up a leadoff homer in the 5th to Mike Brosseau (of course) and another walk killed him in the 6th when Hilliard walked, stole second, went to third on a groundout and scored on a Braden Shewmake single. But the Rays tied it again when Brujan walked, Wander singled, and Meadows hit his 2nd double of the game to score them both. Jose Alvarado struck out the side in the 8th, but Will Smith gave up doubles to Shewmake and (you guessed it) Brousseau to make it 6-5 in the top of the 9th. But with two out and the game seemingly over, Wander drilled a HR into the RF stands off Wyatt Mills to dramatically tie it at 6. Nick Anderson had a solid 10th, and Jasseel De La Cruz likewise in the 11th. Seth Beer drew a leadoff walk in the bottom of the 11th but Schnell hit into a double play, and then in the top of the 12th De La Cruz lost it after getting a strikeout to start the inning, walking the next two, giving up a Daulton Varsho single to give Seattle the lead, then wild pitching the runners to 2nd and 3rd for a Hilliard sac fly, and then Kyle Lewis singled in a 3rd run and the damage was done. The Rays did bring the tying run to the plate in bottom of the 12th against Carl Edwards Jr. when Meadows walked and with two out Keibert singled, but Alec Bohm hit one right back to Edwards to end the game. The goat on offense for the Rays today was Devers, who was 0-6 and left 3 men on base. Going to need a big game from Tyler Glasnow tomorrow, both in terms of evening the series and in terms of not having to use the bullpen much after today's 12 innings.

The other DS games:

October 9:

Game 2 (playoffs are stupid):

Last night it was Noah Syndergaard who couldn't come through when it mattered, tonight it was AL ERA leader Tyler Glasnow. 4.2 8 6 6 2 5 is just not going to cut it in any game at any time and this marks the 4th straight playoff loss for Glasnow after the 2021 Wild Card Game and Games 1 and 5 of the 2022 ALDS, although this is the worst he's pitched in any of them. After he gave up a 1st inning HR to (who else) Mike Brosseau, last night's offensive goat Rafael Devers drilled a 2-run HR off Logan Gilbert to give the Rays their first lead of the series, which lasted exactly 2 more innings before Seattle erupted for 4 runs in the 4th. A one-out walk to Yairo Munoz was costly, then an Evan White double put runners on 2nd and 3rd, a wild pitch scored Munoz to tie it, Tommy Pham singled in White, and then Daulton Varsho homered. Glasnow ran into more trouble in the 6th, giving up a Pham RBI double to make it 6-2 before Aaron Ashby came in and bailed him out (pitching well, 1 2/3 perfect with 3 Ks). Vidal Brujan homered in the bottom of the inning to make it 6-3, and Seth Beer did likewise in the 7th to cut it to 6-4, but Carl Edwards Jr., who had a 6.70 ERA in the regular season, shut them down again over the last 2 innings with a Devers single in the 8th bringing the tying run to the plate but Keibert hit into a double play to end the threat. The HRs were nice, but the offense only managed 6 hits on the night and we didn't have any of those multi-hit rallies the team has been known for this year. The bullpen pitched very well over the final 5 1/3 to keep them within striking distance, but it was little consolation. When "aces" like Syndergaard and Glasnow crap the bed, there's little you can do about it. Now barring a miracle recovery from Chris Paddack it will be up to Max Fried to keep the season alive in Seattle in two days' time. I'm now staring at a 3-9 record managing in the playoffs after being 408-240 in the regular season.

Even the 76-86 (make that 78-86) Twins can win a playoff game:

We interrupt these depressing playoffs to bring this news:

Congrats to Schmidt. Maybe he should have started one of the first two playoff games.

October 10:

Two incredible performances by Baez in these playoffs, the first in the WC game, the second now keeping the Padres alive. And Kershaw, who had a mediocre regular season, rolls back the years to put the Dodgers up 2-1.

October 11:

Game 3 (Playoffs are still stupid, but less so tonight):

All hail Max Fried, author of the best Rays postseason start since Blake Snell's 2-hit shutout of Houston in the 2020 ALDS. After being last year's playoff goat for letting a 4-run lead turn into a 9-4 deficit in the pivotal Game 4 in Toronto last season, Fried was magnificent, going 8 6 1 1 1 5. Will Smith gave up a leadoff single to Jarred Kelenic in the 9th but got a double play and a fly out to nail down postseason save #1 and the Rays stay alive for another game. As predicted they faced Tooki Toussaint instead of Nick Margevicius and they got to him for a couple of runs in the 2nd. First Rafael Devers hit a long and loud HR to deep center to lead the inning off, and then they actually strung a couple of hits together for a run when Keibert Ruiz doubled and Nick Schnell singled him home two outs later. They added a run in the 5th when Schnell walked, went to 2nd when Brujan was hit by a pitch, and then was singled home by Austin Meadows. Seattle scored their lone run in the 6th when Yairo Munoz doubled in Kelenic with two out, but Fried limited the damage by getting Tommy Pham to fly out. The Rays added an insurance run in the top of the 9th when Brandon Marsh doubled, advanced to third on a groundout, and then scored on a Wander infield single. Unless I find out Paddack is miraculously better tomorrow, Daniel Lynch will get the start against Margevicius, although Paddack may get thrown into action anyway since it will be all hands on deck in an elimination game. Also Seth Beer had to sit tonight with a stomach virus (we were all kind of sick to our stomachs after the first 2 games), so Triston Casas got the start at DH and went 1-4.

The other DS games:

The Dodgers march on in their bid to win 3 WS titles in 4 years, while the Padres force a game 5 back in Atlanta. The Angels go up 2-1.

October 12

Game 4: (maybe playoffs aren't that stupid after all)

We're going back to St. Pete! Well, we were always going back to St. Pete, the question was whether it would be to play another baseball game. And play we will as the Rays emphatically evened the series with a 17-1 crushing of the Mariners. The game was effectively over in the first inning when opener Robert Stephenson loaded the bases and Alec Bohm came through with a clutch 2-out, 2-run single. And then Yusniel Diaz took Nick Margevicius deep to make it 5-0. They added a run in the 2nd with the bases loaded again when Rafael Devers appeared to strike out but catcher's interference was called on Daulton Varsho. Then Vidal "Babe Ruth" Brujan muscled up once again and hit this 3rd HR of the series, a 3-run shot in the 3rd to make it 9-0, and Wander made the rubble bounce with a 3-run shot of his own in the 5th. The runs kept coming with a Meadows RBI double in the 6th, and Brujan made it a 5-RBI night with a 2-run double in the 9th in his 7th(!) plate appearance of the game. While the Rays were continually circling the basepaths, Daniel Lynch was flat-out brilliant for a guy who would have been left off the playoff roster had Chris Paddack not developed back spasms. He had pitched two fine games against these Mariners in August, both at least 6 IP with no more than 2 ER allowed, but he was even better tonight going 7 4 1 1 3 8. And in one of the signs of the apocalypse, Scott Barlow pitched 2 shutout innings to finish. For the night Brujan was 4-6 with the HR, 5 RBI and a walk, Wander was 4-7 with the HR and 4 RBI, and Rylan Bannon was 4-6 with 3 runs scored as the Rays totaled 21 hits with everyone in the lineup getting at least one. Now it's time for Game 5, with a Syndergaard vs Sheffield rematch. Thor will need to pitch much better obviously, and if only he were a lefty considering how Fried and Lynch shut down the Mariner offense.

Meanwhile, high drama in the other ALDS which is now also going to a Game 5:

The Angels were one out away from advancing to the ALCS, but JD Martinez's 2-run single off Jose Quijada kept the Twins alive and sends the series back to Anaheim. The Halos had come back from a 3-1 deficit on a 3-run blast by Mike Trout and took a 5-4 lead into the ninth before the Twins' heroics.

Art Deco · 08-11-2020, 12:22 PM

With three of the four LDSs going 5 games (only the Dodgers over the Cardinals in 4 being the exception), including the Rays vs Mariners, I'm giving these Games 5 their own post.

October 13:

This was a matchup of aces in Mike Soroka and Mackenzie Gore but neither were around when the game was decided. The Padres got 3 off Luke Jackson (maybe the Braves miss Jasseel De La Cruz - or maybe they don't after Game 1 of our ALDS) to break a 3-3 tie in the 9th, but the Braves nearly tied it or won it, scoring 2 runs and loading the bases in the ninth off Padre reliever Ryan Weathers with one out after a Willy Adames RBI single. But Cal Raleigh flew to shallow center, and Johan Camargo struck out, and the Braves are denied a fourth straight trip to the NLCS as the Padres complete the comeback from being down 2-0 in the series. Instead it will be the Padres and Dodgers, who last met in the 2020 NLDS with the Dodgers winning that series 3-1.

Game 5: (Playoffs aren't stupid, they're fun!)

The Rays picked up where they left off in Seattle in Game 4, scoring 8 runs in the first 4 innings to beat the Mariners 8-3 in the decisive Game 5 of their American League Division Series and complete the comeback from 0-2 down. Rafael Devers blasted a 3-run HR with one out in the first after Vidal Brujan and Austin Meadows had singled, and Yusniel Diaz singled in Keibert Ruiz who had doubled to make it 4-0 after 1 to chase Seattle starter Justus Sheffield. In the bottom of the 3rd a Mike Brosseau error helped Alec Bohm drive in Meadows with a sac fly to make it 5-1, and in the 4th Rylan Bannon led off with a HR and later in the inning Meadows hit a 2-run shot and it was 8-1. Daulton Varsho and Jarred Kelenic hit solo shots off Noah Syndergaard, who was good but not great, to make it 8-3 and Thor finished with a 7.2 9 3 2 1 6 line before Shane McClanahan and Will Smith finished off the game as the dogpile was extra-enthusiastic considering the playoff frustrations this team has had. In fact this is the first time in 15 years that the Rays won a playoff series (wild-card games aren't a "series"), with the last one being the 2008 ALCS over Boston. As you can see from the game story above Vidal Brujan was named series MVP, and well-deserved. Now we await the winner of the Twins-Angels Game 5.

And it's the Angels the Rays will be facing, after they took a page from the Rays' book today and scored early and often to win Game 5:

We'll have a preview of the Rays-Angels ALCS in the next post.

Art Deco · 08-11-2020, 04:50 PM

The NL got started first:

October 15:

The Padres jumped all over Walker Buehler for 5 runs in the first 3 innings, and took a 6-0 before having to hang on to an 8-6 win to take a surprising 1-0 lead. Surprisingly might be too strong a word considering how well Michel Baez has pitched this season and throughout the playoffs, he went 6 strong innings, only allowing 2 runs to actually increase his postseason ERA to 1.23. His bullpen, though, nearly let him down. Jurickson Profar was 4-4 with a couple of RBIs to lead San Diego.

ALCS preview:

The Rays have had their issues with left-handed pitching even if their season record against them is pretty good, and some of those problems have been with the lefties the Angels are throwing at them as seen in a September series in Anaheim. Right now these are the projected pitching matchups:

Game 1, in St. Pete: Tyler Glasnow vs Patrick Sandoval
Game 2, in St. Pete: Max Fried vs Edwar Colina
Game 3, in Anaheim: Noah Syndergaard vs Garrett Williams
Game 4, in Anaheim: Chris Paddack or Daniel Lynch vs Yohander Mendez

Games 5-7 would be the same matchups as Games 1-3 presumably

Paddack remains in "uncertain return" status with his back spasms although I could throw him out there if I wanted to. Hopefully by the time Game 4 rolls around he'll be over them.

October 16:

Game 1: Another postseason start, another game in which Tyler Glasnow puts the Rays into an early hole. You could say it doesn't matter since the Rays were shut out tonight after scoring 25 in their final 2 games against Seattle, but the psychological effect of having to play from behind constantly isn't an optimal thing for a team. Anthony Rendon took him deep for a 2-run shot in the 1st and former Ray farmhand Nick Solak had a solo blast in the 2nd and that was all LA needed. Glasnow settled down and ended up with a pretty good 7 4 3 3 2 8 line but the early runs against remain a problem. Ty Buttrey pitched a scoreless 8th against his old team but Aaron Ashby, who has pitched well of late, was tagged by the lefties he was brought in to face, including a 2-run homer from Billy McKinney. Of course, the offense couldn't get anything going. They had 8 hits and 3 walks but they were spaced apart for the most part. They nearly scored in the 7th when Vidal Brujan doubled and Brandon Marsh attempted to score, but he was thrown out at the plate by Solak. And then in the 8th they loaded the bases against Angels closer Eric Marinez down 3-0 but Yusniel Diaz grounded out to end that threat. They also couldn't take advantage of the fact that Angels starter Patrick Sandoval had to leave after 4 with shoulder inflammation (he's done for the postseason) as they struggled against all 4 LA pitchers. The only solace they can take is that this is a 7-game series and losing Game 1 isn't as dire as it was in the 5-game LDS.

NLCS Game 2:

It was a good night all around for the LA teams as the Dodgers pounded the Padres to even their series at 1. Cody Bellinger had 2 HR and 4 RBI while Brusdar Graterol struck out 10 Padres in 5 scoreless innings to get the win. Interestingly, the AI Dodger manager had Clayton Kershaw pitch the final three innings for the save so it will be interesting to see what's going on with that rotation.

October 17:

Game 2: Bohms away as Alec Bohm (twice), Seth Beer and Vidal Brujan all homered to pace the Rays to a 9-1 drubbing of the Angels to even the ALCS at one game apiece. Bohm's first HR put the Rays in the lead to stay in the 2nd inning after Keibert Ruiz was hit by a pitch, making it 2-1, and Beer followed with his own blast to make it 3-1. And 3-1 is where it stayed in a semi-tense game until the 6th inning. After getting men on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out it looked like the Rays would squander the opportunity to expand the lead when Beer hit a shallow fly ball and Nick Schnell struck out before Brandon Marsh walked to load the bases. But the Angels brought on Melvin Adon to relieve Edward Colina, and Brujan continued his postseason power surge with his 4th playoff HR after hitting 13 all season to make it 7-1. Bohm then added another 2-run shot off Adon in the 7th to truly blow it open. Meanwhile, Max Fried also continued his postseason excellence by going 8 7 1 1 1 7 and keeping the Angels off-balance all night. It didn't look great for him at the outset when Kyren Paris doubled, stole third and scored on a Luis Renfigo single before he could retire a batter but that turned out to be all LA would get. Jasseel De La Cruz gave up a single and a double in the 9th, but struck out the side around that to escape unscathed as we head to Anaheim all square.

October 18:

NLCS Game 3:

Mackenzie Gore was brilliant for the Padres (7 6 1 1 2 7) as they took a 2-1 lead over the Dodgers. Fernando Tatis Jr's 2-run HR in the first inning was all San Diego needed and they broke open a close game late. Tatis' HR came off surprise starter Taylor Rogers, who had been the Dodgers' setup man all season and was the other AI shoe to drop after Kershaw was used in relief in Game 2. Rogers pitched pretty well (5.1 5 2 2 1 4) so that experiment was a success but Gore was better.

October 19:

Game 3: For the first time this postseason (not counting the end of the LDS of course) the Rays have a series lead after a much-closer-than-it-appears-from-the-score 7-2 win over the Angels. Noah Syndergaard got the start and he seems to be getting a little better each time out, today going 7 7 2 2 2 5. But he finished with the game tied at 2 going to the top of the 8th, and the Rays were having trouble with lefty Garrett Williams as they did in a regular season meeting a month earlier. Williams went 7 5 2 2 1 6 and fortunately for the Rays the "2" were solo HRs from Alec Bohm (picking up where he left off in Game 2) in the 2nd and Rylan Bannon in the 3rd. They were glad to see him leave when LA brought in closer Eric Marinez and Wander roped a one-out single to center off him. Then Marinez threw wildly to first trying to pick off Wander, sending him to 2nd base and he moved to 3rd on an Austin Meadows groundout. But with two out, Rafael Devers came up with a clutch single to right to score Franco and give the Rays a 3-2 lead. Nick Anderson came on for the bottom of the 8th and although he gave up a leadoff single to Anthony Rendon, he got Anthony Rizzo to roll into a 6-4-3 DP and struck out Nick Solak. Then the Rays went to work in the top of the 9th. After a leadoff walk to Yusniel Diaz, Seth Beer pinch-hit for Bannon and drilled one into the RCF seats and after Vidal Brujan walked, Wander took Adam Morgan into the LCF pavilion and it was 7-2 and game over. Shane McClanahan threw a perfect 9th to close it out as Will Smith sat back down in the bullpen after the 9th inning explosion. It looks like Chris Paddack will finally be ready to make his postseason debut in Game 4 so he'll likely get the start with Daniel Lynch ready to fill in.

NLCS Game 4:

The defending champs' backs are to the wall after a second straight 5-1 loss at Petco Park and they're going to need to win Game 5 if they want to go back to Dodger Stadium. Cal Quantrill shackled the Dodgers with a 7 5 1 1 2 7 outing, only allowing a HR to Josh Bell (where was that last year, Josh?). Luis Campusano had 3 RBI on a 2nd inning bases-clearing double to pace the Padres who will go for the Game 5 kill with 20-game winner (and 3-game winner already in the postseason) Michel Baez.

October 20:

Game 4: Chris Paddack got the start, and he did Chris Paddack things: striking out people and giving up HRs. Unfortunately he gave up one longball too many, and the Rays dropped a 4-3 decision to the Angels leaving the series tied at 2 and assuring us of a Game 6 in St. Pete. Anthony Rizzo took him deep in the 2nd, and after an Austin Meadows shot off Yohander Mendez (more on him in a minute) tied the game at 1 in the 4th, three singles off Paddack in the bottom of the inning with the RBI coming from Billy McKinney gave LA a 2-1 lead. And then in the 5th, yours truly probably left him in too long as his pitch count was getting into the low 90s as Luis Renfigo went deep to make it 3-1 and Anthony Rendon followed suit. Paddack ended 4.2 7 4 4 1 6. Daniel Lynch came on and whiffed 4 in 2 shutout innings of relief, Ty Buttrey got a key out, and Jose Alvarado had a perfect 2K 8th to keep the Rays in the game. But the offense as always struggled against an Angels lefty, with Mendez going 6.2 3 1 1 2 6. Jose Quijada, another lefty, came on in the 8th and the Rays did managed to get 2 runs off him when Brandon Marsh singled and Vidal Brujan walked and then moved up to 2nd and 3rd on Quijada's balk. Wander and Meadows hit sac flies to score them both, but that ended the rally and despite a 2-out walk to Yusniel Diaz in the 9th, they couldn't get anything else across on a night the offense only managed 4 hits.

NLCS Game 5:

And whether it's the Rays or the Angels that make the World Series, they're going to face a well-rested San Diego Padres team after their shocking 5-game disposal of the Dodgers. Michel Baez wasn't as dominating as his earlier postseason starts (6.2 6 3 3 3 7) but good enough to get the win in a 4-3 decision over LA, dashing hopes of a Freeway Series. Walker Buehler was pounded for 9 hits and 4 runs in 3.2 innings as the Padres built an early lead, and although the Dodgers crept to within a run on a Dansby Swanson (filling in for Corey Seager, who suffered a serious hip injury in Game 4) HR, Ryan Weathers shut them down over the final 2 innings with 3 Ks to send the Padres to their first World Series since 1998.

October 21:

Game 5: After managing only 4 hits in Game 4, the Rays exploded for 23 in Game 5 to go with 15 runs in a 15-4 blowout of the Angels to pull within one win of reaching the second World Series in club history. Unsurprisingly the offensive outburst came against a righty and not a lefty as Jacob Barnes opened for Abdiel Mendoza and they lit up the pair for 10 runs and 14 hits by the 4th inning. Wander set the tone as the 2nd batter of the game with his 4th postseason HR and then in the 2nd the turnstiles started. Keibert singled, Alec Bohm doubled him to 3rd, Ruiz scored on Seth Beer's groundout, Nick Schnell doubled scoring Bohm, Brandon Marsh singled, Vidal Brujan singled in Schnell, Wander singled to re-load the bases and Meadows singled in Marsh. Bohm hit his 4th HR of the series to the rocks in LF leading off the 3rd, and then they added 5 more in the 4th as they went doubles-happy with Wander, Devers, Keibert and Bohm all hitting two-baggers in the rally. Brujan continued his ridiculous postseason power binge with another HR (#5) in the 7th off Andrew Heaney, and Austin Meadows had a 2-run blast in the 9th to run up the score. Receiving the benefit of all this run support was Tyler Glasnow, who both did not put the Rays into a hole for a change and managed to get his first career postseason win. He went 5.2 2 3 3 2 8 with the 2 hits and 3 runs coming on a pair of Mike Trout longballs. There was a brief scare when the trainer came out and Glasnow was forced to leave in the 6th but it's a 2-day back spasms injury so he'll be available for the World Series should the Rays make it, and possibly even a Game 7 relief stint if things got that desperate. Scott Barlow mopped up with 1 2/3 scoreless, and Andy Ashby went the final 1 2/3, allowing a run. Max Fried will try for his 3rd win in 3 postseason starts to put the Rays in the Fall Classic against San Diego in two days' time at the Trop.

Notes: The top 6 batters in the order all had at least 3 hits, with Brujan going 4-6 with a HR and 3 RBI, and Meadows and Bohm each 3-6 with a HR and 3 RBI. Somehow Seth Beer was 0-5 but he did have a walk and an RBI groundout. Brujan is now 391-5-16 in the postseason, bringing back memories of BJ Upton's run in the 2008 playoffs.

Art Deco · 08-12-2020, 04:03 PM

October 23, 2023:

Game 6: Hmm...the board won't let me go all caps in the post title. So let me yell it in the text: THE RAYS WIN THE PENNANT! THE RAYS WIN THE PENNANT! And they won in the most dramatic fashion possible: A 3-run walk-off HR in the bottom of the 9th trailing 3-1 to give them their second AL crown in club history and first trip to the World Series since 2008. Alec Bohm had a monster series and he became the monster of Angels fans' nightmares by taking Eric Marinez deep the opposite way to the RF stands to give the Rays a 4-3 win and a 4-2 series win, sending sold-out Tropicana Field into a delirious frenzy. The Rays had been frustrated by Angel starter Edwar Colina, who had a 1915-like pitching line of 7 7 1 1 0 0; in fact, the Rays neither walked nor struck out in the entire game. But in-play outs they made a lot of, and it wasn't until the 7th that they broke through against Colina when Seth Beer doubled in Keibert Ruiz with 2 out but couldn't get home himself. That cut the lead to 2-1, and when Nick Anderson surrendered a longball to Luis Renfigo in the top of the 8th to restore the LA lead to 3-1, it looked like we were headed to a Game 7. But after Ty Buttrey retired his former team in order in the top of the 9th, Rafael Devers reached on an infield single, and then rookie Kyren Paris and his 70 glove booted Ruiz's ground ball to bring up Bohm who launched his bomb and joined the pantheon of LCS walk-off series-winning heroes such as Chris Chambliss, David Ortiz, Aaron Boone and Jose Altuve. Lost in the Rays' early offensive woes was another great outing from Max Fried, who went 7 4 2 1 3 4, making it his third postseason start in three outings in which he pitched at least 7 innings and gave up no more than one earned run, including a season-saving Game 3 win in Seattle after the Rays started that best-of-5 series down 0-2. It's been quite a turnaround from his dismal second half of the regular season and quite the turnaround from being last year's playoff goat by imploding in the pivotal Game 4 against Toronto in the ALDS. Bohm's homer was his fifth of the series, with all coming in the last five games and he was deservedly named Series MVP, but Fried would rank a close second.

So it's now on to face the San Diego Padres, a team the Rays swept in their visit to San Diego in September. The sweep sent the Padres into a bit of a tailspin down the stretch, costing them the division title, but it mattered not as they beat the same Dodgers who finished ahead of them and in 5 games no less. They boast a great 1-2 punch of MacKenzie Gore and Michel Baez with the lefty Gore shaping up in particular as a potential problem given how they struggled with the Angels' lefties. They also missed Gore in the regular season series. Cal Quantrill, their third starter, ain't too shabby either. The rotation will go Noah Syndergaard, Tyler Glasnow, Fried and Chris Paddack, with Paddack scheduled against his old mates in Game 4 at Petco. In case you're wondering about Brendan McKay, whom the Rays traded (along with JJ Bleday) to acquire Paddack, he's not on the big league roster and it appears the Padres are now grooming him more as a hitter than pitcher, a not-shocking move considering how his pitching skills have deteriorated over the last couple of years.

Art Deco · 08-12-2020, 10:23 PM

October 26:

A few notes about our World Series coverage. With the Rays involved, I will have a separate post for each "series" of games at each ballpark: Games 1-2, Games 3-5, Games 6-7. I'll also be providing the full box score for each game.

Game 1: Noah Syndergaard had been fair to good in his postseason starts, but he had yet to turn in a true #1 starter performance worthy of his reputation. Until tonight. Taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning, Syndergaard went 8 very strong innings as the Rays took Game 1 of the 2023 World Series 4-2 over the San Diego Padres at Tropicana Field. He was matched up with MacKenzie Gore and the two of them put on a show. While Gore was piling up the strikeouts against the team that didn't strike out once in Game 6 of the ALCS and was the toughest team to whiff in MLB, Syndergaard was matching him pitch-for-pitch. Unfortunately the defense didn't live up to his exploits on the mound and in the 4th inning a 2-base throwing error from Wander Franco allowed Taylor Trammell to eventually score on a Manny Machado ground ball after stealing third. But Keibert Ruiz hit his first postseason homer off Gore in the bottom of the 4th to equalize, and Syndergaard despite being tied at 1 took his no-hitter into the 7th. Unfortunately he lost the no-hitter and the lead when Machado homered off him leading off the inning but just like when the Padres scored in the 4th the Rays answered right back in the bottom of the inning, this time with two runs to put them in front. Gore started running out of gas, giving up singles to Yusniel Diaz and Rylan Bannon to lead off the inning. After striking out Brandon Marsh for his 10th whiff of the game, he gave up a single to Vidal Brujan to load the bases and then walked Wander Franco to force in the tying run. One-time Rays farmhand Resly Linares relieved him and proceeded to give up an RBI single to Austin Meadows before striking out Rafael Devers to end the inning. Syndergaard made it through the 8th, finishing the game with an outstanding 8 2 2 1 0 10 line, and who else but the blazing-hot Alec Bohm homered for the 6th time in 6 games to give the Rays a big insurance run. Will Smith fanned two Padres in the 9th for the save and the Rays grabbed the early lead in the series, a welcome reversal after losing Game 1 of both the ALDS and ALCS. Despite what the box score story says below, Tyler Glasnow will be going against Michel Baez in Game 2 tomorrow.

Game 2: Whoa, oh, we're halfway there.... The Rays jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the 2023 World Series with an 8-4 win over the San Diego Padres behind the strong pitching of Tyler Glasnow, who had his best-ever postseason start. Glasnow was 6 5 0 0 2 10 with the only drawback being it took him 120 pitches to get through 6 as a lot of his strikeouts came on full counts. Still it was a dominant performance the likes of which he often provides in the regular season but has struggled to provide in October. The offense faced another tough customer in Michel Baez, who had won 23 games this year between the regular season and postseason. Baez didn't have any problem striking out the tough-to-whiff Rays with 8 in his 5 innings but between those strikeouts the Rays managed to get to him several times. Seth Beer kick-started the offense with a solo homer in the 2nd, Rafael Devers had RBI doubles in the 3rd and the 5th, a run scored on an error, and then Brandon Marsh delivered the dagger with a 3-run HR off him in the 6th before Baez could retire a batter in the inning. Beer delivered another run in the 7th when Alec Bohm and he each doubled as the team banged out 7 extra-base hits in the game. The bullpen was shaky with Ty Buttrey and Shane McClanahan each allowing a pair of runs but Jasseel De La Cruz closed things out in the 9th to send the series back to San Diego with the Rays looking to take a commanding 3-0 lead with Max Fried against Luis Patino (again, ignore the game story below, OOTP would have me start Chris Paddack all 7 games it seems).

Art Deco · 08-13-2020, 12:24 PM

October 29:

Game 3: Scott Barlow and Andy Ashby. Anyone following this team during the season will recognize those two as the big offseason bullpen acquisitions who turned out to be severe disappointments in the regular season. In fact I referred to them to at one point as "partners in arson" and Ashby was demoted to AAA Durham for about a month at mid-season. But the two of them were called on today in Game 3 of the World Series, and both responded effectively as part of 5 1/3 shutout innings from six different relievers in a 6-5 win over the San Diego Padres to put the Rays one win away from their first-ever World Championship.

The Rays twice took the lead off Luis Patino and starter Max Fried twice gave it back. Vidal Brujan kept up his postseason power surge by homering to give them a 1-0 lead in the third, but Fried allowed 2 runs in the bottom of the inning. Rafael Devers then hooked a 2-run homer around the RF foul pole in the 4th to make it 3-2 Rays, but Fried coughed up that lead too, allowing 3 runs and leaving with the bases loaded and 2 out. Enter Barlow to face Rhys Hoskins, and he got a lazy fly ball to get out of the inning and to keep the Padres from expanding their 5-3 lead. Ty Buttrey, who allowed a pair of runs in Game 2, got through the 5th without incident, and that set the stage for the Rays' comeback in the top of the 6th.

With one out, Keibert Ruiz singled, Alec Bohm walked, and then Brandon Marsh doubled to score Ruiz and send Bohm to 3rd. Nick Schnell's groundout brought Bohm home with the tying run, and pinch-hitter Seth Beer (on the pine with no DH in an NL park) greeted reliever Reggie Lawson with an opposite field single to left to score Marsh and make it 6-5. There were still 4 innings to piece together from the bullpen from there, and Jose Alvarado made an early appearance and got through the 6th with a couple of lefties due up. He hung around to get the leadoff lefty in the 7th, and Nick Anderson got a couple of strikeouts after walking Hoskins. The Rays mounted a rally in the 8th that brought the pitcher's spot to the plate, so Rylan Bannon pinch-hit for Anderson but flew out, meaning someone else would have to take over the 8th. With a couple of lefties due up, I could have gone to Will Smith for a 2-inning save but that might have been pushing it so I turned to Ashby, who had pitched much better toward the end of the season. Well he came through big-time getting a 1-2-3 8th inning and striking out Taylor Trammell to end it. Will Smith then pitched the 9th and he struck out Fernando Tatis Jr. and Trent Grisham before getting Manny Machado to ground out to nail down the save, his 3rd of the postseason as Buttrey picked up the win. Fried had his first poor start of the postseason, going 3.2 8 5 5 3 4 after 3 brilliant starts, but the bullpen and the offense picked him up and now the team is one win from destiny.

And the game story below is finally correct for once: Chris Paddack will actually start Game 4 against his old team. Also the headline is hilarious: "move to within 1 game of Round 5". There's a Round 5?????

October 30:

Game 4: THE RAYS ARE WORLD CHAMPIONS!!! Rafael Devers' 2-run homer in the 1st and Austin Meadows' 3-run shot in the 3rd paced the Rays to a 6-3 win and a World Series sweep of the San Diego Padres for their first-ever title. Chris Paddack got the win against his former teammates, going 5 5 3 3 0 7 and then the bullpen, which has been lights-out since early in the ALDS, saw four pitchers each throw a scoreless inning to preserve the 6-3 lead they held since the 5th. The Rays jumped all over Cal Quantrill, who had been excellent in each prior series for San Diego, when Meadows singled with two out and Devers homered for the second consecutive day. His 2 HR and 6 RBI in the 4 games earned him series MVP. In the 3rd it was Meadows' turn to drive in the runs with a 3-run blast after Brujan doubled and Wander walked to start the inning. Wander's RBI groundout in the 4th made it 6-0 after Nick Schnell had walked, was bunted over by Paddack and Brujan singled Schnell to 3rd. But San Diego wasn't going to go quietly as Paddack gave up his obligatory longball(s). Trent Grisham hit a 2-out, 2-run HR to make it 6-2, and the following batter Rhys Hoskins tripled, but Paddack whiffed Eric Hosmer to strand him on 3rd. Luis Campusano had a solo shot in the bottom of the 5th to make it 6-3, and when Paddack's turn at bat came up in to the top of the 6th he was pinch hit for, having thrown 97 pitches. Ty Buttrey got the 6th and hit a man but got the other three out, Jasseel De La Cruz whiffed a pair around a walk in the 7th (he had to leave the inning hurt after the last batter, we'll have to see how he is), Nick Anderson finished the season in his typical dominant form with a perfect inning with two strikeouts, and Will Smith nabbed the save in the 9th, giving up a one-out single but getting Campusano to hit into a 5-4-3 around-the-horn double play to start the celebrations and the dogpile.

Art Deco · 08-13-2020, 05:28 PM

It's party time in the Tampa Bay area as the Rays had their World Series parade celebration along Central Avenue in downtown St. Petersburg. Now the task of defending the title starts with the offseason. But first a look at the trophy:

Word from the bossman:

And the more important word from the bossman:

By way of comparison, our 2023 payroll was $116.5M, and with everyone coming back (except Syndergaard and TJ McFarland, who are free agents), the payroll would be $134.9M based on arbitration estimates. There are a few players not coming back at their salaries (I'm not paying Ty Buttrey $7.5M to be a middle reliever, for example) so we will have plenty of money to spend. The dilemma now becomes how much to tinker with a 115-win team that just swept the World Series, especially given the glut of talent that's major-league ready but without a spot. Sure I'd love to have Syndergaard back, but I'm not going to give him a 6-7 year contract (3 might be the most I'd consider), but I bring him back, what about Dustin May, Asa Lacy and Shane Baz at Durham? All of them should be pitching in the majors. Hell, Shane McClanahan deserves to start. Fried and Paddack are going into their last year of arbitration and will be FAs next winter so perhaps I deal one of them. It's good to know money's not going to be an issue but I'm not going to spend it just to spend it.

Checked in with Syndergaard, and here's what he's looking for:

Nope.

NOTABLE RETIREMENTS:

Ex-Rays: Evan Longoria, Chaz Roe, Jake Odorizzi
Others: Joey Votto, Daniel Murphy, Corey Kluber, Todd Frazier, Kyle Seager, Yan Gomes, Dellin Betances

Surprise, surprise:

GLASNOW WINS AL CY YOUNG AWARD

I have to admit I voted for Cole, more innings, more Ks, higher WAR, but I suppose Glasnow's ERA crown tilted it in his favor. And Tyler Glasnow is 30? Where do the years go? Elsewhere, Mike Soroka (22-4) won the NL Cy Young, Vlad Jr. made it two-for-two as AL MVP after winning the Triple Crown, and Cody Bellinger and his 65 HRs won the NL MVP. Oh yeah, and I won AL Manager of the Year for the second straight season. Wander Franco finished 3rd in the AL MVP voting which is fine, but if you had told me when I bought OOTP back in April that he'd finish just behind Mike Brosseau I would have asked for my $40 back.

BIG TRADE ALERT!!

Well this was a biggie. Time to start dealing from our prospects & outfield glut and in the process we got one of the best young starters in baseball who's signed through 2027 on a team-friendly deal. Manning was 6th in MLB in pitching WAR (5.5) this past season, going 15-14, 3.62 with a mediocre Detroit team with an outstanding 59/243 K/BB ratio in 211 IP. There's really nothing not to like here. His first couple of seasons in MLB were a bit of a learning process but even in a down year in 2022 with the "happy fun ball" he still earned 2.4 WAR. Of course Detroit likely nets more raw talent in this deal and I may have made them the best team in the AL Central next year if Baz can approach what Manning has done. He certainly has the stuff and potential to (he may never match Manning's control though) and Kirilloff if given a chance to play every day should hit at least .290 with 25 HR. We've got our ace replacement for Syndergaard, still have a bunch of fine young pitchers coming up (Lacy, Jimmy Lewis, Seth Johnson, Mack Anglin) and of course even with Kirilloff dealt we still have a glut of quality OF prospects. And we actually added one here in Ashford, who has serious potential with 70 current speed and 55 *current* power, and he's a 60 in RF. He hasn't played above rookie ball but the tools are undeniable, he just needs to make enough contact. Finally, the deal opens up a 40-man spot which is a big deal this offseason because I'm really looking at losing someone good in Rule 5 this time.

Some free agent news:

So he signs for nearly $30M/year with the Cards. Glad he went back to the NL obviously, and we'll get a comp pick as of course I made him the 1-year, $15M qualifying offer. Was the trade last offseason with the Mets worth it? Flags fly forever, I doubt Snell would have done much better (even though he did with the Mets) and we didn't miss Yonny Chirinos (whom the Mets signed to a 3-year extension as well). And the comp pick could turn out to be an excellent prospect. By the way, I got a message that the fan interest almost completely crashed when Syndergaard signed with St. Louis, I guess that World Series win a month ago is forgotten.

Of more concern is that the Red Sox acquired Jesse Winker from the Reds for a couple of prospects. Winker's a consistent 25-30 HR, .290-.300 hitter. I just wonder where they'll play him since they have Ozuna in LF and Verdugo in RF and I don't think he's a CF. He should definitely make their lineup scarier in some fashion, though, and a lot will depend on Abraham Toro repeating his breakout year (he did slump in September). The Sox think Toro's breakout is real, though, as they gave him a 5-year contract extension.

December 7: Designated P Tanner Dodson and P Dany Jimenez for assignment and placed them on waivers.

Unlike previous seasons where I had enough 40-man room that I dealt some Rule 5-eligible guys rather than possibly lose them, this year it's about opening spots on the 40-man. Dodson has good stuff but atrocious control, and Jimenez is making $2.2M so if someone claims him so be it. Needed the spots for Heston Kjerstad and Nick Frasso, and I still need a couple of more spots for the likes of Jhon Diaz, Patrick Bailey, and Jimmy Lewis. Kind of resigned to losing Owen Miller even though (and because) he's an ideal MI backup and Luke Little possibly.

December 12: Designated P Austin Franklin for assignment and placed him on waivers; Franklin was claimed by Washington. Assigned P Tanner Dodson and P Dany Jimenez to AAA Durham.

Franklin was the next choice to go to open up a 40-man spot, for Jimmy Lewis. Unfortunately he didn't sneak through waivers like the other two as Dodson's inconsistency and Jimenez's salary were enough for other teams to give them a pass.

MORE BIG TRADE NEWS!

Whenever a fanbase thinks a young player isn't playing enough or needs to be promoted, the #Free(PlayerName) hashtags hit social media. Well this trade is a #Free(PlayerName) trade. Yusniel Diaz deserves to play every day somewhere instead of where he's spent the last 2 1/2 seasons on the short end of a RF platoon as a 4th outfielder. And Clarke Schmidt is probably already pitching IRL for the Yankees by the end of the 2020 season while in this save he's been stuck at Durham for 3 years. So best of luck to these guys in Milwaukee. And in return we get a guy I've coveted for a long time and also deserves a #FreeKestonHiura hashtag as the AI, after playing him every day in 2020 and being an All-Star, has turned him into a part-time player the last 3 seasons rather inexplicably. Luis Urias is pretty good himself, but... Anyway Hiura isn't probably going to get everyday at-bats with us either, given that we have a guy named Vidal Brujan at 2B. But he will DH against lefties and spell Brujan (and spell Wander occasionally with Brujan sliding to SS) and who knows, maybe he takes at-bats from Seth Beer against RHP at DH. Anyway his contract is extremely cheap (he's signed for the next 4 seasons at a total of $30M combined) and he can rake. We weren't terrible against lefties last year (although we often could be) but we could have been better and my plans now are to platoon Spencer Torkelson with Nick Schnell in left, meaning Torkelson and Hiura replace Diaz and Bannon as the Schnell/Beer platoon partners, which to me is a clear upgrade. This of course means Bannon is now expendable as the bench would be Ronaldo, Casas, Hiura and Torkelson vs RHP. And yes the deal opens a 40-man spot too.

December 19: The Rule 5 Draft

The Rule 5 draft was a bore, with only two players taken, none of whom were ours. Yes, this means the Rockies for once did not take someone from us.

Some free agent updates: The Dodgers as always sign all the big-name relievers, they got Aroldis Chapman for 1 yr/$5M, Milwaukee shelled out $39M over 3 years for Kenta Maeda, the Rockies signed soft-tossing Brad Keller for 4/34.6 which should get ugly real fast, and 34-year-old Kyle Hendricks, although still pitching well, got 5/85 to stay with the Cubs in a deal that shouldn't age well.

Art Deco · 08-14-2020, 10:49 AM

Things have been pretty quiet at Rays central the last month or so as we're now into mid-January. The Cardinals offered us Dylan Carlson for Ronaldo Hernandez, which in a vacuum is very intriguing except for 1) we have the outfield covered three times over, 2) Carlson after a brilliant sophomore season in 2022 slumped badly last year, and 3) I was still intrigued by the fact he's a switch-hitter but then saw his splits and he seriously struggles with lefties, so he's a switch-hitter in name only. Plus, while Chris Betts is ready for MLB he's a lefty hitter too and l like Ronaldo's right-handed bat. Still looking to move Trevor Larnach, though.

I checked out the Detroit home page with their projected lineup and they're showing Kirilloff as their #3 hitter and starter in RF, good for him, but I didn't see Shane Baz in their rotation because they're making him their closer (!). Yusniel is projected to start in RF for Milwaukee, but I didn't see Clarke Schmidt in their rotation, would hate to see him stuck in AAA again. Speaking of old players of ours, Brendan McKay was released by the Padres and signed to a minor-league deal by the Mets where he's listed as a pitcher again.

Meanwhile in the free agent sweepstakes, one of the big dominos fell when Philadelphia signed Miguel Sano to a 6/85 deal, and the Blue Jays signed Byron Buxton to a 7/128(!) contract. Buxton did well for himself building his value with the 1-year contract he signed with Baltimore last year just before spring training, he stayed healthy and had a big 32 HR/92 RBI season. We'll see if stays healthy in Toronto. Flamethrower Jordan Hicks signed a 3/15 deal with Milwaukee, and Alex Bregman signed a 7/251 extension in Houston.

And in his first year of eligibility, Adrian Beltre was elected to the Hall of Fame with 76% of the vote. He was the only inductee as Gary Sheffield got up to 65% but fell off the ballot in his last year.

January 22: Ty Buttrey will bring his Rays World Series ring to Chicago as he signed a 2/10.6 deal with the Cubs. But in the big news of the day, the Miami Marlins are now the Miami Roughnecks! Here's the logo (eh):

January 24: Caleb Smith will continue to haunt us. The Oriole lefty who's always given us fits was signed to a 3/33 deal by the Red Sox today. I should have signed him just to keep him from pitching against us. Also the Padres signed Tyler Zombro to a minor-league deal. He had an outstanding season at Durham last year but was stuck there. I offered him another minor-league contract but I don't blame him for going elsewhere.

TRADE NEWS:

Well we found Trevor Larnach a home. I think he's better than Chad Allen, who's penciled in for RF in Pittsburgh at the moment. Delgadillo is a marginal prospect, he's a groundballer who throws 91-93 so I doubt we'll miss him. The return is Mitch Keller, who can bring it, but someone we'll have to work with to get his control under control. Keller's out of options so he'll make the team as a middle reliever, which is the impetus for me to do something I've been thinking about: sending Shane McClanahan back to Durham to be a full-time starter. He regressed a bit this year in relief but his stuff is still great. Max Fried and Chris Paddack are free agents next winter so there will probably be a couple of holes in the rotation to fill and I'd like to think Mac can be one of them, perhaps along with Asa Lacy who's also ticketed for a return to Durham. Anyway, Keller can take over Mac's long relief role and start if necessary. The other guy in the deal, Price, is a control artist from Air Force who probably won't amount to much but he'll at least take Delgadillo's spot in the organization.

January 29: Brandon Nimmo signed a 1-year, $9.7M deal with Texas. Also in a shock move, Trevor Story is retiring from the Cubs at age 32 to be more involved with his church.

INJURY UPDATE:

Uh..good news, I guess? Ryan was supposed to be out until the second half of the season after going down with a torn UCL and undergoing TJS last May. He's on the 60-day DL and really wasn't in my immediate plans. At the moment I neither have a spot for him on my 40-man nor my staff, so I'm going to have to figure out something.

February 15: Signed P Dylan Bundy to a minor league contract.

Something will have to go horribly wrong if we end up purchasing Bundy's contract from Durham, but he should help out that staff. "Should", I say as last year's vet pitchers Brandon Workman and Tony Cingrani turned out to be disasters.

Also, ex-Ray from last season TJ McFarland signed with the team we beat in the World Series, the Padres, for 1 year and $2.5M. Of course he ended up being left off the playoff roster when Paddack had the back spasms and we needed Daniel Lynch, who did come through in Game 4 of the ALDS.

February 18: Traded P Drew Strotman to the Kansas City Royals for OF Erickvi Celedonio, activated P Joe Ryan from the 60-day IL.

Had to make 40-man room for Joe Ryan, and I wasn't going to lose Strotman for nothing like I did Austin Franklin. Celedonio is a 23-year-old speedster with 55 gap power and 50 HR power (a 50 rating, not 50-HR power) who'll probably be thrown into a future trade someday. Ryan, meanwhile, has one option year left and he may very well be in the Durham rotation. I put Ryan on the block to see if I could get a prospect and didn't get one offer, now that he's on the 40-man, I might be willing to deal him for a vet.

February 21: Sonny Gray signed a 1-year, $5.5M deal with the Pirates. A good signing, if Gray can stay healthy which is always a big "if".

February 29: (Yeah, it's a leap year) The Orioles signed Max Scherzer to a 1-year, $3.5M deal. An excellent gamble for them, and I was considering offering Scherzer a contract but his stuff and velocity is way down after missing most of last year with a partially torn UCL. OOTP labels him as "wrecked". Plus I had flashbacks to Zack Greinke 2022 as well. But for a pitching-starved team like Baltimore it's a no-lose move, and I'm not thrilled he's in the division.

Art Deco · 08-14-2020, 08:08 PM

Spring training was pretty uneventful, with only one injury: Scott Barlow strained his oblique and will miss the first six weeks of the season. We've got a lot of cover in the pen so this won't be a critical blow. One thing I did not realize is that Asa Lacy is out of options, so he's making the team.

As for performances, Spencer Torkelson had a big spring, going 375/438/571 in 56 AB, although he "only" hit 3 HR (and 2 came in the first game of spring training). Heston Kjerstad started hot with 2 HR and 11 RBI in his first 8 games, but finished 0-15. Nothing remarkable on the pitching side to report, most everyone looked sharp with a few hiccups here and there.

TRADE NEWS:

As alluded to in the Hiura trade commentary, Bannon was expendable and he was dealt to the White Sox for a couple of decent prospects. Christidis has 70 current/80 potential stuff and pitched very well as a starter but I could also see him becoming an elite reliever. Kehoe was the Sox' 1st round pick in 2022 and is a CF. Despite our OF glut, most of the good ones are corner guys and we were a bit thin in the middle.

2024 OPENING DAY ROSTER:

C: Keibert Ruiz, Ronaldo Hernandez
1B: Alec Bohm
2B: Vidal Brujan
SS: Wander Franco
3B: Rafael Devers
IF: Triston Casas, Keston Hiura
LF: Nick Schnell
CF: Brandon Marsh
RF: Austin Meadows
OF: Spencer Torkelson
DH: Seth Beer

I want to get Torkelson's bat in there as much as possible, so while he will definitely platoon with Schnell he'll also fill in for Bohm and Beer from time-to-time against righties In fact those four are probably going to get rotated around, and of course Casas figures in too. The one drawback of dealing Yusniel is that I don't have a true backup CF, Schnell will likely be the one to fill in for him as he can fake it there from time-to-time.

SP: Tyler Glasnow, Matt Manning, Max Fried, Chris Paddack, Dustin May
LR: Asa Lacy, Daniel Lynch
MR: Mitch Keller, Aaron Ashby
SU: Jasseel De La Cruz, Jose Alvarado, Nick Anderson
CL: Will Smith

A bit lefty-heavy in the pen (5 vs 3) with us having to keep Lacy, although it could be said he's just taking McClanahan's role. McClanahan will start at Durham with an eye to having him as a starter next year, and Joe Ryan of course was sent to Durham as well.

Art Deco · 08-14-2020, 09:37 PM

Game 1: Opening Day at the Trop was quite the affair, with a pre-game ceremony in which the Rays received their World Series rings and a fired-up crowd greeted the New York Yankees. The pitching matchup was first-rate, with defending AL Cy Young winner Tyler Glasnow versus the guy many thought should have won the award, Gerrit Cole. And the matchup lived up to its billing through the first half of the game as we went scoreless until the bottom of the 5th when the Rays pushed across a couple of runs. Seth Beer led off with a walk, Nick Schnell singled, and a Brandon Marsh fly ball sent Beer to 3rd. Vidal Brujan hit into a fielder's choice to score Beer, and then he stole second and scored on a Wander Franco single. Meanwhile Glasnow was dealing but finally ran into trouble in the 7th when a 2-out double from Yankee rookie 3B Skyler Messinger brought home a run. Glasnow then walked Mike Tauchman leaving with an excellent 6.2 4 1 1 1 7 line, and Nick Anderson got the final out to keep it 2-1. The Rays then added 2 more in the bottom of the 7th, chasing Cole, on doubles from Schnell (his 3rd hit of the game) and Brujan, and a Rafael Devers sac fly. Anderson got Luke Voit to start the 8th, and although Jose Alvarado gave up a hit and a walk, he whiffed Giancarlo Stanton who represented the tying run at the plate. Will Smith got a pair of Ks to start the 9th and after Brujan booted what would have been the final out, Smith got a popup to end the game and grab save #1 in the 4-1 win. In addition to Schnell, Wander had 3 hits as well as they outhit the Yankees 10-5.

The Rays game was one of only 3 on opening day as I'm using the 2016 schedule in order to get the rotating interleague matchups right as this year they'll play the NL Central in addition to the "rivalry" games with the Miami Marl...er, Roughnecks. They're off on the 8th while everyone else opened up. Boston lost to Pittsburgh 6-4 and Trevor Larnach had a HR for the Pirates (an insurance run in the 9th), Tigers OF phenom Riley Greene had a HR and 7 RBI in his MLB debut in a 13-5 win over the White Sox that also saw Alex Kirilloff go 0-3.

Game 2: Matt Manning made his Rays debut and he was great...until he got hurt. Manning went 5.2 5 1 1 1 5 but had to leave in the 6th with elbow tendinitis and will be out 4 weeks. It put a damper on what was an otherwise successful second game for the Rays as they drubbed the Yankees 8-3. Wander Franco hit a pair of HRs and drove in 3 runs in his first 2 at-bats, Rafael Devers had a 2-run triple and Brandon Marsh had an RBI double. Jasseel De La Cruz relieved Manning and got out of the 6th but gave up a couple of runs in the 7th that got the Yankees within 4-3, with the second run coming in when Jose Alvarado gave up an RBI single to another of the Yankee rookies, LF Kyle Isbel. Nick Anderson got though the 8th with 2 strikeouts, and then the Rays broke it open with 4 in the 8th allowing Mitch Keller to make his Rays debut and throw a scoreless inning. With early season off days, we won't need a fifth starter too much and of course Daniel Lynch and Asa Lacy are candidates already on the active roster.

Yusniel Diaz was 3-4 with a HR and 3 RBI for Milwaukee today and Clarke Schmidt worked 2 innings in middle relief for the Brewers, while Noah Syndergaard went 7 scoreless to beat the Cubs 1-0 in the latest on the Rays diaspora.

April 9: Placed P Matt Manning on the 15-day IL with elbow tendinitis, purchased the contract of P Dany Jimenez from AAA Durham, assigned P Tanner Dodson to AAA Durham.

Jimenez and Dodson had to clear waivers to come back, and they did, and Jimenez gets the call back up.

Game 3: The Rays got more of a fight from the Yankees today, but it still wasn't enough as they swept the opening series with a 9-7 win. Nick Schnell continued his torrid start to the season with 3 more hits, including a 2-RBI single in the 6th that proved to be the margin of victory. They jumped out to a 4-0 lead after 2 innings and it looked like it would be another rout, but starter Max Fried allowed the first 3 hitters of the 3rd inning to reach and Gleyber Torres hit a grand slam to center to tie the game, and the Yankees added two more off him in the fourth including another Torres HR to go up 6-4. But the Rays struck back for 3 in the bottom of the inning, keyed by a 2-run Brandon Marsh double, his second of the game, before adding the two on the Schnell single in the 6th. Fried settled down after his rough first 4 innings to get the Yankees in order in the 5th and 6th, and Mitch Keller pitched a scoreless 7th before putting the leadoff man on in the eighth. With a bunch of lefties coming up, Aaron Ashby got the call and after striking out the first one, he started giving up hits and walks allowing Keller's runner to score but was helped by Austin Meadows gunning down a runner at 3rd. Nick Anderson had to come in to face Skyler Messinger with two out and got him on a groundball on the first pitch. Will Smith took over in the 9th and got a pair of strikeouts in a perfect inning for save #2, while Fried picked up the win while going 6 9 6 6 1 6. Vidal Brujan was 3-5 with a pair of ribbies, and Wander Franco ended the 3-game series 7-11 with 2 HR and 6 RBI after 2 more hits and 2 more RBI today. Also Spencer Torkelson made his MLB debut at DH, and after rolling into a double play in his first at-bat, singled to left in his second and also walked as part of a 1-3 day.

Team record: 3-0.

Art Deco · 08-15-2020, 12:28 PM

Game 1: On a night the offense largely took off, a brilliant outing from Chris Paddack and an electric relief Rays debut from Asa Lacy helped the Rays to a 4-1 win and a 4-0 start to the season. Paddack was dealing early, with 8 Ks through 4 innings, and a Cavan Biggio RBI single was the only mark against his record. After he departed with a 6 5 1 1 0 8 line, Lacy took over with the idea of getting through the 7th but he was so good he pitched the 8th as well, ending with 2 hitless innings and 4 strikeouts. Will Smith picked up save #3, getting Bo Bichette to hit into a double play and striking out Ryan Noda to end the game. The offense only managed 5 hits on the night but did draw 5 walks, mostly off Toronto starter Simeon Woods Richardson who was also hurt by a pair of Blue Jay errors. Keibert Ruiz had 3 of the team's 5 hits, including an RBI, Nick Schnell drew a bases-loaded walk, and the big hit was Vidal Brujan's 2-run single in the 3-run 2nd inning.

Game 2: Another day at the office for the Rays, who cruised to a 5-1 win behind the excellent pitching of Dustin May, who went 6 5 1 1 1 8 in his first start as a regular member of the Rays rotation. Meanwhile the offense had more success against another Toronto pitcher with 3 names, tonight battering Sean Reid-Foley for 4 runs and 7 hits in the first 2 innings before Reid-Foley had to leave with forearm stiffness. He probably also developed neck stiffness from turning to watch the Rays circle the bases. In the first, Wander singled, stole second and scored on a Rafael Devers double, and then they hit for 3 in the 2nd that started with a leadoff homer from Seth Beer (only the team's 3rd in 5 games, with Wander getting the other 2), followed by a Nick Schnell double, Keston Hiura (giving Brujan a night off) single, a Wander RBI single, and an Austin Meadows sac fly. Reid-Foley was followed by rookie Yennsy Diaz (just how many Y.Diazes are there in the league now?) who pitched 5 2/3 innings of great relief, whiffing 5 Rays before they finally got to him in the 8th for a run which scored on a Brandon Marsh infield single. In that rally Beer was hit by yet another pitch and has a 4-day thigh bruise injury so Tork and/or Casas should be getting some at-bats. May was relieved by Jose Alvarado, who struck out all 3 Jays he faced in the 7th, then Jasseel De La Cruz had a scoreless 8th. Nick Anderson was in line for the save with Will Smith in need of a rest after 3 saves in 4 games but with the extra run in the 8th Dany Jimenez was given the ball. He allowed singles to the first two batters but got a deep fly out and then a double play which he started himself to end the game as the Rays remain undefeated to start the year. Wander had 3 more hits (and a couple of steals) and is now 10 for 20.

Rays disapora update: The Royals put Drew Strotman in their rotation but his debut did not go so well as he allowed 5 runs in 3 innings at Houston, admittedly a tough place to pitch. Also for the Royals another former Rays property whom we acquired twice and dealt twice, JJ Bleday, was 2-4 with his first MLB homer. The Royals claimed Bleday on waivers from San Diego, which now has nothing to show for the Chris Paddack deal after they released Brendan McKay. Meanwhile Strotman's partner in crime, Austin Franklin, made his Nationals debut today with 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief with 3 strikeouts.

Durham update: The move-Shane-McClanahan-to-the-starting-rotation experiment had an early success: 7.2 3 0 0 1 8 on only 89 pitches against Charlotte today in an 8-0 Bulls win that saw Chris Betts, Owen Miller and Niko Hulsizer go deep.

Game 3: It was the Tork and Tyler show tonight at the Trop as the Rays made it 6 straight wins to start the year with a 6-3 triumph. In the 2nd inning Spencer Torkelson drilled his first MLB HR of many to come with a 2-run oppo taco to the RF stands to give the Rays the lead to stay, after Vlad Jr. hit a 517-ft missile against Tyler Glasnow in the 1st to give the Jays a brief lead. Tork later singled and had an RBI double in the 7th to go 3-4 with the HR and 3 RBI. On the pitching side Glasnow was untouchable after the Vlad blast, going 7 3 1 1 1 8 in another great start from the staff. With the game 6-1, Aaron Ashby came on and struck out the first two lefties he faced but two men on. Since the worst that could happen was 6-4 I let him pitch to Vlad, who made it 6-3 with a 2-run double. Jasseel De La Cruz got Bo Bichette to end the inning, and with Will Smith still a bit tired and several lefties due up, Jose Alvarado got the save opportunity and cashed it in, getting a DP to erase a leadoff single and a pop-up to end it. In non-Tork offensive news, Vidal Brujan was 3-5 with 2 steals and an RBI, Wander remains at .500 with 2 more hits and a ribbie, Triston Casas spelled Alec Bohm and was 2-3 with a walk, and Rafael Devers hit his first homer of the year in the 3rd off Matt Wisler, whom the Rays tattooed for 12 hits in 5.2 innings.

Game 4: Another great start from the rotation and the bats came alive in the late innings for what turned out to be an 8-2 thumping of the Jays and a 7-0 start to the season. Daniel Lynch, filling in for Matt Manning, was an excellent 6 3 1 1 2 7 with his only blemish being - you guessed it - a Vlad Jr. HR. Guerrero had 3 of the Jays 5 hits for the entire game as Lynch was in control for the most part. Asa Lacy came on again and was impressive, although he did allow a solo HR to Brett Phillips he was otherwise untouched in his 2 innings with a pair of Ks, and once the game was blown open again in the 8th Mitch Keller finished instead of Will Smith and had a pair of strikeouts around a Vlad double. As mentioned the offense started slow with only 2 runs through the first 5 innings, scoring one on a DP groundout and the other on a Wander double. But they added a pair in the 6th on Austin Meadows' 1st longball of the year and a RBI double for Keston Hiura for his first big hit as a Ray. A Meadows sac fly plated a run in the 7th and then Brandon Marsh went deep for the first time this year himself, into the Rays tank to score 3 for the final margin. The Rays had 13 hits on the day with Alec Bohm's 3 leading the way. Spencer Torkelson was 0-4 as the only Ray not to reach base.

Team record: 7-0.

This didn't come as a surprise:

08-07-2020, 07:29 PM	#141
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	September 12-14, 2023 vs Texas (3) That should read at Texas above. Been remiss in providing the updated MLB standings. No real drama in the NL with the divisions in hand and the wild cards as well (Mets and Padres). Once again the AL Central stinks with Minnesota the best of a bad lot, and of course a great division race in the west as well as a pretty wide open wild card race with the west loser and Houston and Boston battling it out for the second spot. You'll note some familiar names among the leaders, like Mike Brosseau 2nd in the league in WAR which falls into the "Things Nobody Could Have Foreseen for $200, Alex" category. Also Xavier Edwards is 2nd in steals, which was quite foreseeable. And it's good to see that Taylor Walls made it as Houston's utility guy, and he has a current 18-game hitting streak to boot. And how about Cory Bellinger, tied with Maris in the NL. We'll see him next week as we start this road trip in Texas and then hang out in LA for a while with a series with the Angels and then 2 games with the Dodgers. Also of course we have the MLB record of 116 wins in sight, we'd have to go 12-5 the rest of the way to break it which just happens to be our current winning percentage. Those two games against the Dodgers won't help. Game 1: Noah Syndergaard was masterful going 9 5 0 0 0 6 to improve to 18-4, 3.23 in a 3-0 shutout of the Texas Rangers, his second whitewashing of the season in a history-making win for the Rays. After allowing a Stephen Wrenn double with two out in the fifth, Syndergaard only allowed one baserunner after that, a HBP in the 9th. Rangers starter Tadaomi Akamine nearly matched him pitch-for-pitch, with the Rays clinging to a slender 1-0 lead on Wander's 33rd HR of the year in the first inning going into the top of the 9th. Finally with two out they broke through against reliever Ricky Vanasco when Alec Bohm walked with two out, scored on a Seth Beer double, and then Beer scored on Yusniel Diaz's double. Even with that late outburst, the Rays only managed 5 hits on the night themselves, but in any event the win was #106 on the year, breaking the club record of 105 set last season and keeping alive hopes of breaking the MLB record of 116. Game 2: It was the Keibert Ruiz show at Globe Life Field tonight as the Rays all-star catcher belted 3 homers and drove in 6 to pace the team to a 9-3 win. I believe this is the first 3-HR game I've had from a player since managing the Rays, and he did it in his first 3 at-bats and nearly had a fourth but flew out to deep right. The Rays jumped all over Texas starter Ross Stripling in the top of the 1st. For the second straight day Wander homered in the first inning (#34), then Austin Meadows followed with #32. Rafael Devers singled, and Ruiz hit the first of his three to make it 4-0. Keibert hit his second in the 3rd, a 3-run shot to make it 7-1, and then Devers (#23) and he went back-to-back off Addison Moss in the 5th to make it 9-1. The 3 homers give Keibert 21 for the season, and while he probably won't equal last year's 28 to be where he is considering he only had about 5 or 6 well into June is impressive. Sitting back and watching all this run support roll in was Chris Paddack, who was outstanding in his own right going 7 6 1 1 0 6 to improve to 15-6, 3.78. Aaron Ashby and Scott Barlow finished it out and unsurprisingly allowed a couple of runs between them, although a Wander error was responsible for one. Game 3: If our all-star catcher isn't going to beat you, his backup will. That was the story today as Ronaldo Hernandez had a big game and the key at-bats in a come-from-behind 7-5 win over Texas. With the Rays trailing 5-4 in the 6th, Ronaldo homered off Tarik Skubal to tie the game, and in the 8th his sac fly brought home the winning run. He also had an RBI groundout earlier and continues to rake in infrequent play, now 293/325/578 with 11 HR and 25 RBI in 147 AB. Skubal looked unhittable very early, setting down the first 8 Rays with 4 of them on strikeouts before Trevor Larnach got a lefty-on-lefty hit off him and Vidal Brujan hit #13 to put them up 2-0. But Max Fried kept giving the lead back, allowing 2 in the bottom of the third and then when the Rays scored 2 more in the 4th on doubles by Devers and Bohm and Ronaldo's groundout, Fried let Texas get 3 more in the bottom of the inning to take the lead, and finished an ugly 4.2 9 5 5 3 3 line. But Jasseel De La Cruz was great again, whiffing 3 in 1 2/3 scoreless, Alvarado got the two batters he faced, one on a strikeout, in the 7th and picked up win #5, Nick Anderson struck out the side around a walk and a hit in the 8th, and Will Smith nailed down save #36 despite allowing a walk. The march towards history rolls on, with the team now needing to go 9-5 in its final 14 to set the all-time MLB single-season wins record. Team record: 108-40. Minor League Playoff Update: Montgomery missed the playoffs in AA this year, but defending IL champ Durham is back. Durham had an outstanding 84-56 record yet they finished 10 games behind Gwinnett, the Braves' AAA team, who went a Rays-like 94-46. So as a result they're matched up against each other with Durham as the wild card and Gwinnett the #1 seed. Tonight was Game 1 of the best-of-5 in Gwinnett and Durham pulled out a 7-5 win in 11 innings to take command. Greg Jones' 2-run triple was the game-winning hit, Dany Jimenez (remember him?) got the win with 2 innings of scoreless relief, and flamethrower Sandy Gaston (71 Ks in 33.2 innings although with a 5.35 ERA) whiffed a pair for the save. Spencer Torkelson had a HR and 3 RBI, and Heston Kjerstad, who had an MVP-caliber season at Montgomery going 309/385/550 with 25 HR and 102 RBI and was promoted to take Trevor Larnach's place in RF, was 3-4 with a triple, a HR and 2 RBI. Durham had fallen behind 3-0, 4-3, and 5-4 but kept coming back. Clarke Schmidt hung in there at 6 8 4 4 2 9 to keep them in the game. Shane Baz gets the ball tomorrow in Game 2. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-08-2020 at 01:12 PM.

08-08-2020, 01:47 PM	#142
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	September 15-17, 2023: at LA Angels (3) Game 1: The Rays used up one of the 5 losses they can suffer if they want to break the MLB single-season wins record as they fell 6-2 to the Angels today. Of course the Angels have more important matters to play for as they remain neck-and-neck with Seattle for the AL West lead and Garrett Williams was dominant today for LA. He went 5.1 4 1 1 2 9 in 103 pitches, an impressive performance given how tough as a team the Rays are to strike out. Daniel Lynch on the other hand was far from impressive, knocked around for 10 hits in 4.2 innings and allowing 5 runs, although only 2 were earned. Shane McClanahan, though, could have helped his line had he not surrendered a lefty-on-lefty 2-run double by Billy McKinney, the first batter he faced, which turned a 3-1 game into a 5-1 game. Dustin May allowed an inherited McClanahan runner to score in the 7th but otherwise pitched 2 scoreless innings in his first relief appearance. Austin Meadows' RBI single was the offense as the other run scored on a wild pitch. Trevor Larnach got another start against a lefty but this one didn't go so well, 0-4 and whiffing all four times up (although he did have another outfield assist). When Brandon Marsh comes back the answer to "Schnell or Larnach?" might just be Yusniel Diaz. Durham Playoff Update: Shane Baz had a brutal first inning, allowing 4 runs on 6 hits, and the Gwinnett Stripers built a 5-2 lead in the 5th, but it didn't matter to the Bulls as they came back from a big early deficit once again to score a 9-5 win and take a commanding 2-0 lead in their best-of-5 first round playoff series. In the 6th the Bulls scored 7 runs before Gwinnett could get an out, capped by a 3-run Hunter Bishop blast. Tyler Frank had the big hit before that, a 2-run double to go with an earlier RBI double. Austin Franklin (remember him too?) pitched 2 1/3 innings in relief of Baz (who gamely made it through 4 2/3) to pick up the win and Tyler Zombro had 2 scoreless innings to finish it off. And finish it off is what the Bulls hope to do in two nights' time behind Asa Lacy. Game 2: The more things change.... This real-life 2020 headline from a couple of days ago immediately sprung to mind in tonight's game as on the heels of lefty Garrett Williams shutting them down, lefty Yohander Mendez (who came into the game with an ERA near 5) went 8 6 1 1 1 2 in a 2-1 win over the Rays, seriously damaging their hopes of setting the MLB wins record. For 6 innings though it looked once again like Tyler Glasnow might be the story as he had another potential no-hitter going, although with a few walks and 8 strikeouts mixed in he was already at 100 pitches entering the 7th. But Mike Trout led off the inning with a long HR to tie the game though Glasnow ended a still-spectacular 7 1 1 1 3 10. Jasseel De La Cruz pitched around a hit and a walk to lead off the 8th but the wheels came off in the bottom of the 9th with Jose Alvarado, who walked the first three batters he faced to load the bases. With the infield in, he got Anthony Rizzo to hit a grounder right at Alec Bohm at 1B and get the force at the plate, and Nick Anderson came on in hopes of striking out Nelson Cruz. Instead Cruz singled to right and the game was over. The lone Rays run came in the first when Austin Meadows doubled with two out and Rafael Devers singled him home. They had a chance to retake the lead in the 8th when with one out Nick Schnell doubled and Vidal Brujan had an infield single, but Wander grounded into a double play. Meanwhile, with the scoreless inning De La Cruz extended his Rays scoreless streak to 18 2/3 innings, and Glasnow with his performance today lowers his AL-leading ERA to 3.07. This is also the first time the Rays have lost two straight since August 6-7 vs Miami and Toronto. Game 3: It was a miracle comeback until it wasn't and the Rays were swept as the Angels pulled off another walk-off win, 9-8. With 2 out in the top of the ninth the Rays trailed 8-4 but Rafael Devers hit a grand slam to equalize. Jasseel De La Cruz came on for the 9th and picked a fine time to give up his first Rays run as he allowed Nick Solak to lead off with a single and then wild-pitched him to 2nd. Mike Trout was intentionally walked, bringing up Anthony Rendon, and De La Cruz threw another wild pitch to put the winning run on 3rd and Rendon singled him home. The big news for the Rays (aside their hopes of the MLB win record pretty much going by the wayside) was that Noah Syndergaard had to leave the game with an oblique strain which came on the last batter he was facing anyway. The report says "DtD (minimal) 2 weeks" so obviously we're not going to fool around with it and his regular season is over but he should be over it come playoff time. In his final regular season outing (most assuredly as a Ray, as we aren't going to be able to afford to re-sign him) he had a strange game, yielding 3 HRs and going 6 8 7 4 0 10. The three unearned runs came as a result of his own fielding error and it was a game where he was hard to hit at times, but when he was hit it was hard including 3 HRs allowed. In addition to the Devers slam, the Rays had HRs from Triston Casas (#12) and Trevor Larnach (#3), and a Meadows sac fly. The Devers slam made him the third Ray to go over 100 RBI at 102, joining Wander at 114 and Meadows at 103. Speaking of Wander, he had a brutal weekend going 0-14 in the three games and has fallen well behind Vlad Jr for the AL WAR lead now. Yusniel also was 0-for-LA and is in a 1-19 slump of his own, so with the HR today the arrow is pointing up for Larnach in the 3rd OF spot derby. Syndergaard's regular season ends at 18-4, 3.31 with a 33/186 BB/K ratio in 204 innings and 4.2 WAR. Team record: 108-43. Durham Playoff Update: The Bulls advance to the Championship Round after sweeping mighty Gwinnett with a 6-0 win. Asa Lacy pitched his first professional shutout, going 9 4 0 0 1 6 on 104 pitches, and Durham broke open a scoreless game by scoring 6 runs with 2 out in the 6th. It marked the second straight game they had a lengthy rally in which Gwinnett couldn't retire anyone. With two out, Chris Betts singled, Wil Myers walked, Tyler Frank had an RBI single, Greg Jones doubled in Myers, Owen Miller singled in Frank and Jones, Spencer Torkelson walked, and then Hunter Bishop doubled in Miller and Torkelson. That was more than enough for Lacy, and the Bulls will play the Indianapolis-Scranton winner in the final round. Here's hoping the "Tampa Bay organization team sweeps the first round of the playoffs" omen is stronger than the "Team with best record by far is swept in the opening round" omen. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-08-2020 at 04:58 PM.

08-08-2020, 07:58 PM	#143
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	September 19-20, 2023: at LA Dodgers (2) Game 1: The baseball world was talking up this 2-game series as a possible World Series preview, and the game itself had a postseason feel as it was tightly played with plenty of drama and a raucous Dodger Stadium crowd. The Rays ended up prevailing 7-4 in 10 innings, so a World Series preview is just fine with me. It was Chris Paddack against Alex Wood and both starters were gone by the 6th inning. Paddack recovered from allowing the first batter he faced, Jeren Kendall, to take him deep and ended with a 5 8 2 2 0 5 line. In fact it was Paddack who got the offense going as the former Padre with hitting experience doubled off Wood in the 3rd and scored when Vidal Brujan doubled him home. Brujan scored on a Meadows groundout to give the Rays a brief lead, but Gavin Lux doubled home Cody Bellinger to tie it. They grabbed the lead back in the 6th when Rafael Devers doubled and scored on a Yusniel Diaz sac fly and made it 4-2 in the 7th when Devers singled in Brujan, who had stolen second. Aaron Ashby got the call in the 6th over TJ McFarland with several lefties in the Dodger lineup and got through it despite a couple of runners, but Jose Alvarado served up Cody Bellinger's 63rd HR of the year to cut it to 4-3. Nick Anderson entered for the 8th, and then he gave up a leadoff homer to Will Smith (the catcher) and we were suddenly tied. Will Smith (the pitcher) struck out the side in the 9th and off to extras we went. Edwin Diaz had mowed down the Rays in the top of the 9th but things went very differently in the tenth against him as Devers went the opposite way inside the LF foul pole for his fourth hit of the game and 25th HR of the season, and then after Keibert singled, Alec Bohm drilled #36 into the LF stands to make it 7-4 and joined Wander, Meadows and Devers in the 100-RBI club with 101. Smith stayed on for a second inning after a reasonable pitch count in the 9th and got the Dodgers in order with one more K for his 3rd win of the season. It was quite the game, and the win keeps their faint record hopes alive as they still need to go 8-2 in the final 10 games to win 117. Game 2: It looked like the Rays' domination of the Dodgers would continue as Austin Meadows had a 2-run HR and Keibert Ruiz followed suit with one against his old battery mate Walker Buehler to make it 3-0 in the first, but that was as good as it got for them tonight in an 8-3 loss. Max Fried had another ugly outing, going 4 10 7 7 2 4 and giving up HRs to Corey Seager, Josh Bell and Gavin Lux. Shane McClanahan looked his best in quite a while with 2 hitless innings with 3 Ks in relief, but TJ McFarland had to leave with a tired arm that will keep him out 2 weeks and perhaps off the playoff roster. After the rough first inning, Buehler settled in and got some revenge for his pasting in Tropicana Field earlier this year, going 8 7 3 3 1 4. In addition to his home run, Keibert threw out all 3 Dodger runners trying to steal tonight or it could have been worse. Wander had 3 hits including a couple of doubles to break out of his mini-slump but Yusniel Diaz continues cold after being pushed into an everyday role, going 0-4 again today. Team record: 109-44. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-08-2020 at 10:14 PM.

08-09-2020, 11:02 AM	#144
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	September 22-25, 2023: vs Boston (4) September 22: Placed P TJ McFarland on the 15-day IL with a tired arm, activated OF Brandon Marsh from the 10-day IL. Game 1: The late-season swoon continues as the Rays drop their fifth game in six, 5-2 to Boston despite a fine effort from Tyler Glasnow. Through 6 the Rays led 1-0 on a Seth Beer HR (#21) and Glasnow had 2-hit the Sox, striking out 9. But he got himself into trouble in the 7th by walking Alex Verdugo and Ryan Mountcastle, and Verdugo came around to score on a sac fly by Xander Bogaerts for the second out. That would have been manageable except he then gave up a 2-run HR to Willians Astudillo to make it 3-1 and that was the ballgame. Ty Buttrey gave up a HR to 20-power-rated Travis Jankowski to make it 4-1, and Scott Barlow of course gave up a run, a HR to Mountcastle. The Rays meanwhile were mostly shackled by Pablo Lopez. After he put a couple of runners on in the ninth, Boston closer Durbin Feltman came on and proceeded to walk Alec Bohm to load the bases and then he walked Beer to force in a run. But Nick Schnell hit a line drive to Bogaerts and he doubled up Bohm off 2nd base to end the game. Lopez held the Rays to 8.1 6 2 2 1 7 while Glasnow was 7 3 3 3 2 10. The loss means the Rays have to win their final 8 to set the MLB single-season wins record, an unlikely outcome. Durham Playoff Update: The Bulls rolled in Game 1 of the best-of-5 International League Championship Series, 7-4 over Indianapolis. Veteran Jose Abreu had the big hit, a 2-run double which broke a 3-3 tie in the 5th inning. Chris Betts was 2-4 with his 1st HR of the postseason and another vet, Wil Myers, was 2-4 with 2 RBI. Clarke Schmidt got the win although he struggled at times, going 5 6 3 3 3 7 and allowing a pair of homers. But Austin Franklin and Tyler Zombro combined for 4 innings of quality relief as the Bulls remain undefeated this postseason. Game 2: Dustin May stole the show today with 7 shutout innings as the Rays edged the Red Sox 3-2. May was in control from the start, retiring the first 12 Red Sox before Ryan Mountcastle singled off him to lead off the 5th. And when did give up some hits, he consistently got the ground ball (12 in total) to get out of it. He went 7 5 0 0 0 7 to go to 3-1 in a performance worthy of the man he's replacing in the rotation at the moment, Noah Syndergaard. Nick Anderson relieved him in the 8th and gave up a longball for the second straight outing. After allowing a one-out double to Niko Goodrum, Anderson served up a 2-run HR to our good friend Abraham Toro to make it a 1-run game but he struck out Randal Grichuk and a tough customer in Alex Verdugo to end the inning. Will Smith issued a one-out walk, but immediately got pinch-hitter Jeter Downs to ground into a twin killing to preserve the win and save #37. The Rays didn't generate that much offense against Matt Shoemaker; despite 10 hits against him they could manage only the 3 runs, which came on an Austin Meadows RBI double in the first, a Brandon Marsh RBI double in the 2nd, and a Wander infield single that brought home a run. Still it was enough for May and for win #110. Durham Playoff Update: The Bulls have had a knack for digging themselves out of big holes, and fell behind 6-0 today when Shane Baz didn't have it today (4 5 5 5 4 6). They nearly pulled it out, losing 10-9 to Indianapolis with Jose Abreu being thrown out at the plate to end the game (really negligence on my part for not pinch-running for him in the 9th). Spencer Torkelson had 4 RBI, Tyler Frank was 4-5 with an RBI and Owen Miller was 3-4 with an RBI to pace the offense. The difference today was that the bullpen let them down - Grant Gambrell and Drew Strotman each allowed a pair of runs and Caleb Sampen allowed one, which meant as good as the offense was they were always playing from behind. The series now goes to Indy tied 1-1. Game 3: The Rays managed to win a game they trailed for almost its entire length when Brandon Marsh drilled a 3-run HR into the RF stands off Jamie Callahan in bottom of the 8th, prevailing 5-4 and dealing a crippling blow to Boston's wild card hopes. Daniel Lynch got the start and it seemed like he was in trouble the entire time. The first two batters of the game scored when Jeter Downs took him deep in the 1st, and after the Rays tied it at 2 in the 2nd he loaded the bases with nobody out in the 3rd and walked Marcell Ozuna to force in a run. But he managed to get out of that jam with just the one run and he kept doing so until he left in the 6th, when Shane McClanahan got him out of his last jam. He went 5 6 3 3 4 6 but it could have been so much worse. It did get worse when Ty Buttrey allowed one of McClanahan's runners to score in the 7th to make it 4-2, although Buttrey got through the 8th, setting the stage for Marsh's heroics. After Triston Casas, getting a start at 1B today, singled off Alex Claudio, Callahan came on and got Ronaldo Hernandez to pop out, but he then walked Nick Schnell which brought up Marsh and the HR. Will Smith had a 1-2-3 9th to nail down save #38 while Buttrey got his 3rd Rays win. Earlier the Rays had scored in the first on Wander's 35th HR and a Brujan RBI single. Schnell meanwhile has reasserted himself as the frontrunner in the OF competition by reaching base 10 of his last 19 times up over his last 5 starts, going 7-16 with 3 walks and a pair of steals. Also, the Minnesota Twins lost game #81 today to drop to 75-81. The significance of this is that as they lead the AL Central they (or somewhat less likely the Royals who are 2 1/2 behind them) will be the first MLB team to win a division with a record of .500 or (almost assuredly in this case) worse. The 2005 Padres won the NL West at 82-80 for the previous worst division-winning record. The Angels, who have almost wrapped up the West, will get quite the break getting to play the Twins or Royals. Meanwhile it's looking like a Seattle-Houston wild card game with the Rays of course playing the winner in the ALDS, although Boston is still hanging in there 1 1/2 behind Houston. Game 4: It was another tight win for the Rays and another nail in Boston's postseason coffin as Chris Paddack did enough through 6 innings and the bullpen did enough over the last 3 to hang on to a 5-4 decision. Like Daniel Lynch yesterday Paddack gave up a HR to the second batter of the game but this time there was nobody on and Randal Grichuk's blast was all he allowed through 5. Meanwhile the offense built a 4-run lead on a Meadows RBI single in the third and a 4-run 4th that saw a tie-breaking 2-run shot by the hot Nick Schnell, a Wander RBI double and another Meadows RBI single. Paddack ran into trouble in the 6th allowing 2 runs and put the leadoff man on in the 7th. Jose Alvarado came in and got Xander Bogaerts to hit into a double play but then made a mess of his own, allowing another run on a walk and 2 hits. Nick Anderson struck out 2 around a walk in the 8th, and then with Will Smith having pitched in the last 2 games, Jasseel De La Cruz pitched the 9th and got his 2nd Rays save with a pair of strikeouts of his own. Paddack improves to 16-6 this season, and 27-6 as a Ray including last year's playoffs. The faint hopes of setting the MLB win record remain alive: they'll have to beat the Yankees the next two nights and sweep the final series of the season in Toronto over the weekend. Team record: 112-45. Durham Playoff Update: The Bulls are one win away from back-to-back International League titles as they edged Indianapolis 4-3 on the road in Game 3. Spencer Torkelson had a big night, on base all 5 times with a pair of RBI doubles and 3 walks, and Chris Betts had the big hit in the fifth breaking a 2-2 tie with his 2nd HR of the finals. Asa Lacy, who had a shutout in the first round, was excellent again today going 6 4 2 2 1 4 to pick up the win, and Sandy Gaston blew away Indy in the 9th striking out the side on 12 pitches for the save. Jimmy Lewis will get the Game 4 start tomorrow to hopefully wrap it up. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-09-2020 at 06:10 PM.

08-09-2020, 06:09 PM	#145
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	September 26-27, 2023: vs NY Yankees (2) Game 1: Well, the bid to set the MLB single-season wins record is over as the Rays fell to the Yankees 5-1. Deivi Garcia shut them down over 8 innings, allowing 5 hits, 0 walks and 6 strikeouts with the only offense coming when Wander doubled in Nick Schnell in the 3rd. Max Fried looked really good through the first 4, gave up the tying run in the 5th, and then melted down in the 6th as he loaded the bases with nobody out, gave up a 2-run double to Aaron Hicks, and then Scott Barlow gave up a 2-run double (surprise) to make it 5-1. After allowing those inherited runners to score Barlow did have 2 scoreless innings and partner in arson Aaron Ashby did likewise. Fried (5 6 5 5 3 7 today) has been really bad in September and is almost certainly the #4 starter now for the playoffs behind Chris Paddack. Now that the record win bid is over and the remaining 4 games are against non-contenders expect the bench to be emptied. Durham Playoff Update: THE DURHAM BULLS ARE CHAMPIONS AGAIN! Back-to-back International League titles for the Bulls as they dramatically defeated Indianapolis today in Game 4 to take the series 3-1. Indianapolis led 1-0 going into the 9th when Heston Kjerstad led off with a single and then the ageless one, Jose Abreu, drilled a 2-run HR to LCF to put Durham up 2-1. Sandy Gaston came on for the ninth, gave up a leadoff single, the runner was bunted over, then he got a strikeout and groundball to 2nd to start the celebrations. Jimmy Lewis got the start and gave up an early homer for the Indy run but pitched well considering it had been a couple of weeks since his last outing as he wasn't needed in the Round 1 sweep, going 6 3 1 1 3 3. Tyler Zombro got the win with 2 scoreless innings of relief. Tyler Frank was named the Series MVP, he was 9 for 17 in the 4 games with 3 hits today. A side note: Abreu's HR came off Graeme Stinson, and if that name sounds familiar he was one of the Rays farmhands included in the Josh Bell deal last year. He had a brief stint with the Pirates this year and had a really good season, although he won't be happy with the way it ended. Game 2: Perhaps it was the pressure of going for the win record being lifted or perhaps it was regression for Shawn Semple after he had shut down the Rays earlier in the season, but the Rays had a laugher tonight, blasting the Yankees 10-0. Well it was a laugher until the laughs stopped when Brandon Marsh had to leave the game after making a diving catch in center. It turns out he has a sprained ankle and will miss 13 days. As the first playoff game is in 8-9 days, he'll probably be kept on the playoff roster and ready to go in Game 3 of the ALDS. As for the game itself, Tyler Glasnow had his final tuneup before the playoffs and looked quite good, going 6 3 0 0 1 7 on 78 pitches and reaching the 200-inning mark for the first time in his career. He ends with an AL-leading 3.01 ERA to go with a 17-7 record and 242 Ks in those 200 1/3 innings. Shane McClanahan completed the shutout with 3 scoreless innings, nabbing his 2nd save of the year. The offense largely came in an 8-run 3rd inning eruption which featured back-to-back-to-back HRs. The first in the series was from Nick Schnell, a 2-run shot as part of a monster night for him where he went 4-5 with that HR and 4 RBI with a 2-run double in the fifth getting the other two runs. There's not much doubt now that he will claim the open OF job for the playoffs, at least against righties, and even against lefties until Marsh comes back. The next HR came from Alec Bohm (#37), followed by Seth Beer (#22). Wander had started the scoring in the inning by tripling in Marsh, and then capped it with a sac fly, giving him 120 RBI. Rylan Bannon and Marsh also had RBI singles in the 8-run inning. Also of note, the 10 runs came with a big chunk of the offense (Meadows, Devers, Keibert, Brujan) getting the day off. Team record: 113-46. AL Playoff Race Update: The Minnesota Twins continue to lose, and continue to lead the AL Central at a ridiculous 75-83, meaning the Central winner won't even win 80 games. And speaking of ridiculous, Kansas City pulled to within 1 1/2 games of the Twins by scoring 8(!) times in the bottom of the 9th to beat Atlanta with Khalil Lee hitting a walk-off grand slam off AJ Minter to give them a 12-9 victory. Meanwhile, Houston lost and Boston won, so the Sox are within a game of the Astros for the second wild card. Seattle looks solid for the first, and the Angels are on the verge of clinching the West and getting to play a sub-.500 team in the ALDS. The NL is all set as it has been for days/weeks, the Mets will play San Diego in the WC game for the right to face Atlanta in one NLDS and the Dodgers will host the Cardinals in the other. It's also retirement time around the game: Elvis Andrus, Justin Turner, Blake Treinen, Ian Kennedy, and Mike Minor all hung up their cleats today. Also, HAHAHAHAHA! Last edited by Art Deco; 08-09-2020 at 10:46 PM.

08-10-2020, 09:11 AM	#146
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	September 29-October 1, 2023: at Toronto (3) AL Playoff Race update from the off-day: Boston lost and Houston won, so they're 2 back with 3 games to go, so looking bleak for the Red Sox in other words. And the AL Central looks like this now with 3 games to go: Minnesota is at Kansas City this weekend while Detroit plays the red-hot White Sox. Game 1: Ronaldo Hernandez and Yusniel Diaz each went deep twice to lead the Rays to an 8-5 win over the Jays. Hernandez had a solo shot in the 4th off Chris Archer, a 3-run blast in the 5th off Archer as well, and had a bases-loaded walk in the 7th to cap a 5-RBI day. Diaz homered in the 2nd and preceded Ronaldo's HR in the 4th with one of his own. The two knocked in 7 of the Rays' 8 runs with Rylan Bannon getting the other on an infield single. Dustin May got the start and had a very rough first, giving up a leadoff shot to Cavan Biggio and allowing another run without getting an out as the next 3 batters singled. But he settled in after that, allowing only more run as he went 5.2 7 3 3 3 5 to go 4-1 as a Ray. Aaron Ashby looked really good, striking out the first three men he faced in a perfect 1 1/3 outing, Ty Buttrey didn't, giving up a 2-run HR to Ryan Noda, so with the lead cut to 8-5 Will Smith pitched the 9th and got save #39. AL Playoff Update: Well all the suspense was leached out of the playoff race tonight as Minnesota beat Kansas City 6-4 and Detroit lost to the White Sox meaning the Twins are 2 up with 2 games left. It's possible the Royals win the last two to force a playoff but not quite the chaos we were hoping for. Meanwhile the Red Sox were bombed 10-4 at Fenway by Baltimore, effectively killing their playoff hopes. Houston needs only one win in the next 2 days or one Boston loss to clinch the second wild card. Wander Franco contract extension? Wander Franco contract extension: He was going to get paid this offseason in arbitration, so we've bought out the arb years and a year of free agency as well. He'll be a free agent at 26; if he keeps up this performance, he could be the first $50M player. I could have gone longer but I'm a bit wary of very long contracts and I could use a rebuilding challenge down the line. Game 2: The Rays fell 7-3 to the Jays as the goal remains for nobody to get hurt. Meadows, Devers, Keibert and Brujan all sat today and Daniel Lynch got the start. Lynch was terrible again, and although he somehow managed to strike out Vlad Jr. twice he couldn't get anyone else out and had a hard time finding the plate, ending 2.2 5 7 7 6 4. He won't be on the playoff roster. Wander homered on the first pitch he saw to celebrate his extension, #36 on the season, and Alec Bohm hit #38. Yusniel Diaz is heating up again, which is good because he's starting at least the first 2 games of the ALDS in CF. He was 2-4 with an RBI for the other Rays run. Scott Barlow relieved Lynch and had perhaps his best Rays outing, going 3 1/3 with only 1 hit and 0 runs allowed although he still hasn't met an inherited runner he couldn't let score as his first pitch coming in was a wild one, allowing the 7th Jays run to cross the plate. Ty Buttrey and Aaron Ashby had perfect innings finishing out the game. The loss means they won't tie the MLB single-season wins record, either, but the real measure of success for this team will be starting in less than a week. AL Playoff Race Update: Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in. KC bombed Minnesota 11-2 to pull back within a game, and Detroit won as well meaning we could have a 3-way tie if KC beats Minnesota and Detroit wins also tomorrow. Or Minnesota could win and that would be that. Houston clinched the second wild card when the Red Sox fell again at home to Baltimore, but suddenly the AL West title is very much in play as those same Astros beat LA. If Houston beats LA again and Seattle knocks off Oakland, the Angels and Mariners would also be tied for first place. The Astros have nothing to play for as they're locked into the #2 wild card, so I'm going to have to manage them tomorrow to make sure they don't use Forrest Whitley. Ditto for San Diego as they have Mackenzie Gore scheduled to pitch and he would be the WC starter. Game 3: What have I kept saying about the goal being not to get anyone hurt? Chris Paddack started today and the plan was to get him through 5 innings and let De La Cruz, Anderson, Alvarado and Smith pitch an inning each to tune up for the playoffs. Well those plans went out the window when Paddack had to leave after the first inning with back spasms which will put him out a week. Fortunately, he wasn't going to be used until Game 3 which will either be a week from today or the day after. So Shane McClanahan came on and I was hoping to get 3-4 innings from him. He only made it 1 2/3 before he too had to leave with back spasms (maybe I should hire a team chiropractor), only a 3-day injury. This meant I had to turn to De La Cruz for some length and he went 2 1/3 scoreless throwing 47 pitches. A tired Ty Buttrey pitched a scoreless 6th, and Alvarado and Anderson made it unscathed through the 8th. Will Smith came on in a non-save situation in the ninth as the Rays were up 5-0 and did not do well at all, giving up 2 HRs for 3 runs, walking one and hitting a batter in 2/3 of an inning so he came out and a tired Scott Barlow actually got the last out with a strikeout for his 3rd Rays save in the 5-3 win. The offense came mostly via the longball: Triston Casas had a 2-run shot off Rick Porcello in the 2nd, his 13th in 141 AB, Keibert hit #23 in the 3rd and Seth Beer also hit #23 in the 5th. The fifth run came on a Yusniel Diaz triple and Trevor Larnach groundout. Yusniel stayed hot with a double to go with that triple and hopefully he can keep it going in the ALDS. I was hoping to get Paddack to 200 innings and 200 Ks, instead he ends with 197 of each. McClanahan got his 8th win in the 8-pitcher parade, and if the Rays needed a reminder that anything can happen in postseason Jordan Romano (who beat them twice in last year's ALDS) came on in relief and pitched 3 1/3 scoreless innings. Final Regular Season Record: 115-47. Not too shabby, but it's 0-0 tomorrow. AL Playoff Update: In the race for the West title, the Angels missed a chance to take care of business for themselves by losing to Houston 7-6 in 11 innings but still won the division when Seattle lost in the late innings to Oakland, 5-3. This means Houston will travel to Seattle for the AL Wild Card Game, it should be Forrest Whitley vs Touki Toussaint. Seattle's ace, Marco Gonzales, has been out awhile with a foot injury and will miss the playoffs. As for the terrible AL Central, well this was always bound to happen: Gonna see how OOTP deals with 3-way ties, should be interesting. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-10-2020 at 03:10 PM.

08-10-2020, 04:28 PM	#147
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	October 2, 2023: Tiebreaker Games, Final Rays Stats & Miscellany So it turns out the 3-way AL Central tiebreaker will work as thus: KC & Minnesota play today, and then the winner will host Detroit in one game for the spot. I'll have that KC-Minnesota game in a little bit after some other stuff. Hey look, another elite OF prospect. Maybe OOTP's "league evolution" feature can involve adding a 4th outfielder and 10-man lineups. Here are the final team stats and their rankings in the AL. Not much change from earlier postings of this report, you go 115-47 and you should be near the top in most categories. Final hitting stats, sorted by WAR. I find it amusing that Albert Almora Jr. had almost as much WAR in 8 games as Max Kepler had in 71: Final pitching stats, sorted by ERA: The first AL tiebreaker game: Minnesota will now host Detroit tomorrow for the AL Central title. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-10-2020 at 05:15 PM.

08-10-2020, 05:32 PM	#148
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	October 3, 2023: Tiebreaker Game Congrats to the Twins, who led most of the way this season before slumping badly at the end and dropping into 3-team tiebreaker, only to turn things around and win it: Zac Gallen, who came into the game with a 6.13 ERA, went 8.1 5 0 0 0 7 and Zack Littell struck out the final 2 for the save to outduel Detroit ace Matt Manning. Nick Gordon singled home Miguel Sano with the game's only run. Minnesota will now travel to Anaheim to play the Angels in the ALDS. Also I lost track of this in all of the tiebreaking madness but congrats to Vlad Jr.: He should grab his second straight MVP, he led the AL in WAR as well with 8.4. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-10-2020 at 05:36 PM.

08-10-2020, 06:53 PM	#149
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	October 5-6, 2023: Wild Card Games Because of the double tiebreaker round in the AL Central, OOTP pushed back the start of the playoffs to Thursday for NL Wild Card Game and Friday for the AL Wild Card Game, meaning the NLDS should start on the Saturday and the ALDS on Sunday. This is great news for the Rays as Brandon Marsh should be ready to play in at least Game 2, if not Game 1, and Chris Paddack's back spasms will be long gone by the time Game 3 is played. Here's the NL game: It was a great pitchers' duel between a 20-game winner from this year (Michel Baez) and one from last year (Sandy Alcantara). Baez went 7 3 1 1 3 6 and Alcantara 7 6 1 1 1 8. Taylor Trammell led off the game with a HR for San Diego and then the Mets equalized on a Pete Alonso RBI single in the 4th. It stayed that way until Rhys Hoskins, thrown out at 3rd in the 7th trying to stretch a double into a triple (and seeing the next batter double), atoned for his earlier mistake by hitting a 2-run HR off Corey Knebel and closer Jose Castillo locked it down to send the Padres off to the NLDS to play Atlanta. It marked the second time in four years these teams met in the NL Wild Card game, with San Diego also winning in 2020. It was also the third NL Wild Card game in four years for the Mets; they won the 2021 game against Washington, and were division winners in 2022. And here's the AL Wild Card Game: It will be the Seattle Mariners and former Ray utility infielder-turned-superstar Michael Brousseau coming to St. Pete in a couple of days' time for the ALDS after a tense 1-0 win over Houston. Touki Touissant was electric, pitching a 4-hit shutout on 119 pitches, walking 3 and striking out 8 against a tough Astros lineup. Forrest Whitley had a 2-hitter of his own going into the 8th, but Evan White doubled, bringing on reliever Matt Barnes who gave up a single to Brosseau to put runners and 1st and 3rd, and then Yairo Munoz's sac fly to left scored White for the game's only run. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-10-2020 at 07:25 PM.

08-10-2020, 07:37 PM	#150
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	The 2023 Division Series Round October 7: In Atlanta, Mookie Betts was the man tonight with 2 doubles, a HR and 3 RBI as the Braves won a battle of aces with 22-game winner Mike Soroka coming out on top versus the Padres' Mackenzie Gore. Betts' solo HR in the 3rd got Atlanta on the board, and then a Jose Ramirez HR and 2-run double by Betts provided the margin of victory, breaking a 2-2 tie in the 6th. In LA, another matchup of aces did not yield a low-scoring game as Jack Flaherty and Walker Buehler each had their troubles although Flaherty hung in there better, going 6 1/3 and striking out 11 despite allowing 4 runs on a couple of homers. Cody Bellinger, who led MLB with 65 HR this season, had one of the Dodgers' 4 longballs in a losing effort while Paul Goldschmidt, Tommy Edman, and Paul DeJong each had a pair of ribbies for the Cards. Well this is just wonderful: Freaking Game 162 injuries! At least I got the news in time to re-add Daniel Lynch to the playoff roster, at the expense of TJ McFarland. I'd still rather not have to start Lynch at all, though, so it looks like Max Fried will get the Game 3 start in Seattle. Hopefully he can turn his recent fortunes around. These are the projected pitching matchups: Game 1, at home: Noah Syndergaard vs Justus Sheffield Game 2, at home: Tyler Glasnow vs Logan Gilbert Game 3, at Seattle: Max Fried vs Nick Margevicius Game 4, at Seattle (if necessary): TBD (Daniel Lynch or Chris Paddack) vs Touki Touissant Game 5, at home (if necessary): Noah Syndergaard vs Justus Sheffield This is based on what I'm seeing on the upcoming schedule, but I would think we'd see Touissant in Game 3 since he'd be on full rest then. October 8: Game 1 (ugh): One of these damn years I'm going to get over the playoff hump. It might still be this year. But it's not looking too good after this painful extra-inning loss to the Mariners in Game 1 at home. Noah Syndergaard got the start and was not the playoff ace I acquired him to be. He went 7 9 5 5 3 4, and was in trouble most of the night after striking out a pair in a scoreless first. Things went bad with 2 walks in the 2nd, the first scoring on Sam Hilliard's 2-run HR and the second coming around to score on a Jarred Kelenic single. Thankfully Vidal Brujan got those 3 runs right back after Rylan Bannon's popup was misplayed into a single, Nick Schnell singled, and then Brujan took Justus Sheffield deep into the LF stands. Austin Meadows followed with a 2-out double and went to third on a wild pitch, but Devers flew out to end the inning. Then Syndergaard gave up a leadoff homer in the 5th to Mike Brosseau (of course) and another walk killed him in the 6th when Hilliard walked, stole second, went to third on a groundout and scored on a Braden Shewmake single. But the Rays tied it again when Brujan walked, Wander singled, and Meadows hit his 2nd double of the game to score them both. Jose Alvarado struck out the side in the 8th, but Will Smith gave up doubles to Shewmake and (you guessed it) Brousseau to make it 6-5 in the top of the 9th. But with two out and the game seemingly over, Wander drilled a HR into the RF stands off Wyatt Mills to dramatically tie it at 6. Nick Anderson had a solid 10th, and Jasseel De La Cruz likewise in the 11th. Seth Beer drew a leadoff walk in the bottom of the 11th but Schnell hit into a double play, and then in the top of the 12th De La Cruz lost it after getting a strikeout to start the inning, walking the next two, giving up a Daulton Varsho single to give Seattle the lead, then wild pitching the runners to 2nd and 3rd for a Hilliard sac fly, and then Kyle Lewis singled in a 3rd run and the damage was done. The Rays did bring the tying run to the plate in bottom of the 12th against Carl Edwards Jr. when Meadows walked and with two out Keibert singled, but Alec Bohm hit one right back to Edwards to end the game. The goat on offense for the Rays today was Devers, who was 0-6 and left 3 men on base. Going to need a big game from Tyler Glasnow tomorrow, both in terms of evening the series and in terms of not having to use the bullpen much after today's 12 innings. The other DS games: October 9: Game 2 (playoffs are stupid): Last night it was Noah Syndergaard who couldn't come through when it mattered, tonight it was AL ERA leader Tyler Glasnow. 4.2 8 6 6 2 5 is just not going to cut it in any game at any time and this marks the 4th straight playoff loss for Glasnow after the 2021 Wild Card Game and Games 1 and 5 of the 2022 ALDS, although this is the worst he's pitched in any of them. After he gave up a 1st inning HR to (who else) Mike Brosseau, last night's offensive goat Rafael Devers drilled a 2-run HR off Logan Gilbert to give the Rays their first lead of the series, which lasted exactly 2 more innings before Seattle erupted for 4 runs in the 4th. A one-out walk to Yairo Munoz was costly, then an Evan White double put runners on 2nd and 3rd, a wild pitch scored Munoz to tie it, Tommy Pham singled in White, and then Daulton Varsho homered. Glasnow ran into more trouble in the 6th, giving up a Pham RBI double to make it 6-2 before Aaron Ashby came in and bailed him out (pitching well, 1 2/3 perfect with 3 Ks). Vidal Brujan homered in the bottom of the inning to make it 6-3, and Seth Beer did likewise in the 7th to cut it to 6-4, but Carl Edwards Jr., who had a 6.70 ERA in the regular season, shut them down again over the last 2 innings with a Devers single in the 8th bringing the tying run to the plate but Keibert hit into a double play to end the threat. The HRs were nice, but the offense only managed 6 hits on the night and we didn't have any of those multi-hit rallies the team has been known for this year. The bullpen pitched very well over the final 5 1/3 to keep them within striking distance, but it was little consolation. When "aces" like Syndergaard and Glasnow crap the bed, there's little you can do about it. Now barring a miracle recovery from Chris Paddack it will be up to Max Fried to keep the season alive in Seattle in two days' time. I'm now staring at a 3-9 record managing in the playoffs after being 408-240 in the regular season. Even the 76-86 (make that 78-86) Twins can win a playoff game: We interrupt these depressing playoffs to bring this news: Congrats to Schmidt. Maybe he should have started one of the first two playoff games. October 10: Two incredible performances by Baez in these playoffs, the first in the WC game, the second now keeping the Padres alive. And Kershaw, who had a mediocre regular season, rolls back the years to put the Dodgers up 2-1. October 11: Game 3 (Playoffs are still stupid, but less so tonight): All hail Max Fried, author of the best Rays postseason start since Blake Snell's 2-hit shutout of Houston in the 2020 ALDS. After being last year's playoff goat for letting a 4-run lead turn into a 9-4 deficit in the pivotal Game 4 in Toronto last season, Fried was magnificent, going 8 6 1 1 1 5. Will Smith gave up a leadoff single to Jarred Kelenic in the 9th but got a double play and a fly out to nail down postseason save #1 and the Rays stay alive for another game. As predicted they faced Tooki Toussaint instead of Nick Margevicius and they got to him for a couple of runs in the 2nd. First Rafael Devers hit a long and loud HR to deep center to lead the inning off, and then they actually strung a couple of hits together for a run when Keibert Ruiz doubled and Nick Schnell singled him home two outs later. They added a run in the 5th when Schnell walked, went to 2nd when Brujan was hit by a pitch, and then was singled home by Austin Meadows. Seattle scored their lone run in the 6th when Yairo Munoz doubled in Kelenic with two out, but Fried limited the damage by getting Tommy Pham to fly out. The Rays added an insurance run in the top of the 9th when Brandon Marsh doubled, advanced to third on a groundout, and then scored on a Wander infield single. Unless I find out Paddack is miraculously better tomorrow, Daniel Lynch will get the start against Margevicius, although Paddack may get thrown into action anyway since it will be all hands on deck in an elimination game. Also Seth Beer had to sit tonight with a stomach virus (we were all kind of sick to our stomachs after the first 2 games), so Triston Casas got the start at DH and went 1-4. The other DS games: The Dodgers march on in their bid to win 3 WS titles in 4 years, while the Padres force a game 5 back in Atlanta. The Angels go up 2-1. October 12 Game 4: (maybe playoffs aren't that stupid after all) We're going back to St. Pete! Well, we were always going back to St. Pete, the question was whether it would be to play another baseball game. And play we will as the Rays emphatically evened the series with a 17-1 crushing of the Mariners. The game was effectively over in the first inning when opener Robert Stephenson loaded the bases and Alec Bohm came through with a clutch 2-out, 2-run single. And then Yusniel Diaz took Nick Margevicius deep to make it 5-0. They added a run in the 2nd with the bases loaded again when Rafael Devers appeared to strike out but catcher's interference was called on Daulton Varsho. Then Vidal "Babe Ruth" Brujan muscled up once again and hit this 3rd HR of the series, a 3-run shot in the 3rd to make it 9-0, and Wander made the rubble bounce with a 3-run shot of his own in the 5th. The runs kept coming with a Meadows RBI double in the 6th, and Brujan made it a 5-RBI night with a 2-run double in the 9th in his 7th(!) plate appearance of the game. While the Rays were continually circling the basepaths, Daniel Lynch was flat-out brilliant for a guy who would have been left off the playoff roster had Chris Paddack not developed back spasms. He had pitched two fine games against these Mariners in August, both at least 6 IP with no more than 2 ER allowed, but he was even better tonight going 7 4 1 1 3 8. And in one of the signs of the apocalypse, Scott Barlow pitched 2 shutout innings to finish. For the night Brujan was 4-6 with the HR, 5 RBI and a walk, Wander was 4-7 with the HR and 4 RBI, and Rylan Bannon was 4-6 with 3 runs scored as the Rays totaled 21 hits with everyone in the lineup getting at least one. Now it's time for Game 5, with a Syndergaard vs Sheffield rematch. Thor will need to pitch much better obviously, and if only he were a lefty considering how Fried and Lynch shut down the Mariner offense. Meanwhile, high drama in the other ALDS which is now also going to a Game 5: The Angels were one out away from advancing to the ALCS, but JD Martinez's 2-run single off Jose Quijada kept the Twins alive and sends the series back to Anaheim. The Halos had come back from a 3-1 deficit on a 3-run blast by Mike Trout and took a 5-4 lead into the ninth before the Twins' heroics. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-11-2020 at 09:25 AM.

08-11-2020, 12:22 PM	#151
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	The 2023 Division Series Game 5 With three of the four LDSs going 5 games (only the Dodgers over the Cardinals in 4 being the exception), including the Rays vs Mariners, I'm giving these Games 5 their own post. October 13: This was a matchup of aces in Mike Soroka and Mackenzie Gore but neither were around when the game was decided. The Padres got 3 off Luke Jackson (maybe the Braves miss Jasseel De La Cruz - or maybe they don't after Game 1 of our ALDS) to break a 3-3 tie in the 9th, but the Braves nearly tied it or won it, scoring 2 runs and loading the bases in the ninth off Padre reliever Ryan Weathers with one out after a Willy Adames RBI single. But Cal Raleigh flew to shallow center, and Johan Camargo struck out, and the Braves are denied a fourth straight trip to the NLCS as the Padres complete the comeback from being down 2-0 in the series. Instead it will be the Padres and Dodgers, who last met in the 2020 NLDS with the Dodgers winning that series 3-1. Game 5: (Playoffs aren't stupid, they're fun!) The Rays picked up where they left off in Seattle in Game 4, scoring 8 runs in the first 4 innings to beat the Mariners 8-3 in the decisive Game 5 of their American League Division Series and complete the comeback from 0-2 down. Rafael Devers blasted a 3-run HR with one out in the first after Vidal Brujan and Austin Meadows had singled, and Yusniel Diaz singled in Keibert Ruiz who had doubled to make it 4-0 after 1 to chase Seattle starter Justus Sheffield. In the bottom of the 3rd a Mike Brosseau error helped Alec Bohm drive in Meadows with a sac fly to make it 5-1, and in the 4th Rylan Bannon led off with a HR and later in the inning Meadows hit a 2-run shot and it was 8-1. Daulton Varsho and Jarred Kelenic hit solo shots off Noah Syndergaard, who was good but not great, to make it 8-3 and Thor finished with a 7.2 9 3 2 1 6 line before Shane McClanahan and Will Smith finished off the game as the dogpile was extra-enthusiastic considering the playoff frustrations this team has had. In fact this is the first time in 15 years that the Rays won a playoff series (wild-card games aren't a "series"), with the last one being the 2008 ALCS over Boston. As you can see from the game story above Vidal Brujan was named series MVP, and well-deserved. Now we await the winner of the Twins-Angels Game 5. And it's the Angels the Rays will be facing, after they took a page from the Rays' book today and scored early and often to win Game 5: We'll have a preview of the Rays-Angels ALCS in the next post. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-11-2020 at 02:40 PM.

08-11-2020, 04:50 PM	#152
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	The 2023 League Championship Series Round The NL got started first: October 15: The Padres jumped all over Walker Buehler for 5 runs in the first 3 innings, and took a 6-0 before having to hang on to an 8-6 win to take a surprising 1-0 lead. Surprisingly might be too strong a word considering how well Michel Baez has pitched this season and throughout the playoffs, he went 6 strong innings, only allowing 2 runs to actually increase his postseason ERA to 1.23. His bullpen, though, nearly let him down. Jurickson Profar was 4-4 with a couple of RBIs to lead San Diego. ALCS preview: The Rays have had their issues with left-handed pitching even if their season record against them is pretty good, and some of those problems have been with the lefties the Angels are throwing at them as seen in a September series in Anaheim. Right now these are the projected pitching matchups: Game 1, in St. Pete: Tyler Glasnow vs Patrick Sandoval Game 2, in St. Pete: Max Fried vs Edwar Colina Game 3, in Anaheim: Noah Syndergaard vs Garrett Williams Game 4, in Anaheim: Chris Paddack or Daniel Lynch vs Yohander Mendez Games 5-7 would be the same matchups as Games 1-3 presumably Paddack remains in "uncertain return" status with his back spasms although I could throw him out there if I wanted to. Hopefully by the time Game 4 rolls around he'll be over them. October 16: Game 1: Another postseason start, another game in which Tyler Glasnow puts the Rays into an early hole. You could say it doesn't matter since the Rays were shut out tonight after scoring 25 in their final 2 games against Seattle, but the psychological effect of having to play from behind constantly isn't an optimal thing for a team. Anthony Rendon took him deep for a 2-run shot in the 1st and former Ray farmhand Nick Solak had a solo blast in the 2nd and that was all LA needed. Glasnow settled down and ended up with a pretty good 7 4 3 3 2 8 line but the early runs against remain a problem. Ty Buttrey pitched a scoreless 8th against his old team but Aaron Ashby, who has pitched well of late, was tagged by the lefties he was brought in to face, including a 2-run homer from Billy McKinney. Of course, the offense couldn't get anything going. They had 8 hits and 3 walks but they were spaced apart for the most part. They nearly scored in the 7th when Vidal Brujan doubled and Brandon Marsh attempted to score, but he was thrown out at the plate by Solak. And then in the 8th they loaded the bases against Angels closer Eric Marinez down 3-0 but Yusniel Diaz grounded out to end that threat. They also couldn't take advantage of the fact that Angels starter Patrick Sandoval had to leave after 4 with shoulder inflammation (he's done for the postseason) as they struggled against all 4 LA pitchers. The only solace they can take is that this is a 7-game series and losing Game 1 isn't as dire as it was in the 5-game LDS. NLCS Game 2: It was a good night all around for the LA teams as the Dodgers pounded the Padres to even their series at 1. Cody Bellinger had 2 HR and 4 RBI while Brusdar Graterol struck out 10 Padres in 5 scoreless innings to get the win. Interestingly, the AI Dodger manager had Clayton Kershaw pitch the final three innings for the save so it will be interesting to see what's going on with that rotation. October 17: Game 2: Bohms away as Alec Bohm (twice), Seth Beer and Vidal Brujan all homered to pace the Rays to a 9-1 drubbing of the Angels to even the ALCS at one game apiece. Bohm's first HR put the Rays in the lead to stay in the 2nd inning after Keibert Ruiz was hit by a pitch, making it 2-1, and Beer followed with his own blast to make it 3-1. And 3-1 is where it stayed in a semi-tense game until the 6th inning. After getting men on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out it looked like the Rays would squander the opportunity to expand the lead when Beer hit a shallow fly ball and Nick Schnell struck out before Brandon Marsh walked to load the bases. But the Angels brought on Melvin Adon to relieve Edward Colina, and Brujan continued his postseason power surge with his 4th playoff HR after hitting 13 all season to make it 7-1. Bohm then added another 2-run shot off Adon in the 7th to truly blow it open. Meanwhile, Max Fried also continued his postseason excellence by going 8 7 1 1 1 7 and keeping the Angels off-balance all night. It didn't look great for him at the outset when Kyren Paris doubled, stole third and scored on a Luis Renfigo single before he could retire a batter but that turned out to be all LA would get. Jasseel De La Cruz gave up a single and a double in the 9th, but struck out the side around that to escape unscathed as we head to Anaheim all square. October 18: NLCS Game 3: Mackenzie Gore was brilliant for the Padres (7 6 1 1 2 7) as they took a 2-1 lead over the Dodgers. Fernando Tatis Jr's 2-run HR in the first inning was all San Diego needed and they broke open a close game late. Tatis' HR came off surprise starter Taylor Rogers, who had been the Dodgers' setup man all season and was the other AI shoe to drop after Kershaw was used in relief in Game 2. Rogers pitched pretty well (5.1 5 2 2 1 4) so that experiment was a success but Gore was better. October 19: Game 3: For the first time this postseason (not counting the end of the LDS of course) the Rays have a series lead after a much-closer-than-it-appears-from-the-score 7-2 win over the Angels. Noah Syndergaard got the start and he seems to be getting a little better each time out, today going 7 7 2 2 2 5. But he finished with the game tied at 2 going to the top of the 8th, and the Rays were having trouble with lefty Garrett Williams as they did in a regular season meeting a month earlier. Williams went 7 5 2 2 1 6 and fortunately for the Rays the "2" were solo HRs from Alec Bohm (picking up where he left off in Game 2) in the 2nd and Rylan Bannon in the 3rd. They were glad to see him leave when LA brought in closer Eric Marinez and Wander roped a one-out single to center off him. Then Marinez threw wildly to first trying to pick off Wander, sending him to 2nd base and he moved to 3rd on an Austin Meadows groundout. But with two out, Rafael Devers came up with a clutch single to right to score Franco and give the Rays a 3-2 lead. Nick Anderson came on for the bottom of the 8th and although he gave up a leadoff single to Anthony Rendon, he got Anthony Rizzo to roll into a 6-4-3 DP and struck out Nick Solak. Then the Rays went to work in the top of the 9th. After a leadoff walk to Yusniel Diaz, Seth Beer pinch-hit for Bannon and drilled one into the RCF seats and after Vidal Brujan walked, Wander took Adam Morgan into the LCF pavilion and it was 7-2 and game over. Shane McClanahan threw a perfect 9th to close it out as Will Smith sat back down in the bullpen after the 9th inning explosion. It looks like Chris Paddack will finally be ready to make his postseason debut in Game 4 so he'll likely get the start with Daniel Lynch ready to fill in. NLCS Game 4: The defending champs' backs are to the wall after a second straight 5-1 loss at Petco Park and they're going to need to win Game 5 if they want to go back to Dodger Stadium. Cal Quantrill shackled the Dodgers with a 7 5 1 1 2 7 outing, only allowing a HR to Josh Bell (where was that last year, Josh?). Luis Campusano had 3 RBI on a 2nd inning bases-clearing double to pace the Padres who will go for the Game 5 kill with 20-game winner (and 3-game winner already in the postseason) Michel Baez. October 20: Game 4: Chris Paddack got the start, and he did Chris Paddack things: striking out people and giving up HRs. Unfortunately he gave up one longball too many, and the Rays dropped a 4-3 decision to the Angels leaving the series tied at 2 and assuring us of a Game 6 in St. Pete. Anthony Rizzo took him deep in the 2nd, and after an Austin Meadows shot off Yohander Mendez (more on him in a minute) tied the game at 1 in the 4th, three singles off Paddack in the bottom of the inning with the RBI coming from Billy McKinney gave LA a 2-1 lead. And then in the 5th, yours truly probably left him in too long as his pitch count was getting into the low 90s as Luis Renfigo went deep to make it 3-1 and Anthony Rendon followed suit. Paddack ended 4.2 7 4 4 1 6. Daniel Lynch came on and whiffed 4 in 2 shutout innings of relief, Ty Buttrey got a key out, and Jose Alvarado had a perfect 2K 8th to keep the Rays in the game. But the offense as always struggled against an Angels lefty, with Mendez going 6.2 3 1 1 2 6. Jose Quijada, another lefty, came on in the 8th and the Rays did managed to get 2 runs off him when Brandon Marsh singled and Vidal Brujan walked and then moved up to 2nd and 3rd on Quijada's balk. Wander and Meadows hit sac flies to score them both, but that ended the rally and despite a 2-out walk to Yusniel Diaz in the 9th, they couldn't get anything else across on a night the offense only managed 4 hits. NLCS Game 5: And whether it's the Rays or the Angels that make the World Series, they're going to face a well-rested San Diego Padres team after their shocking 5-game disposal of the Dodgers. Michel Baez wasn't as dominating as his earlier postseason starts (6.2 6 3 3 3 7) but good enough to get the win in a 4-3 decision over LA, dashing hopes of a Freeway Series. Walker Buehler was pounded for 9 hits and 4 runs in 3.2 innings as the Padres built an early lead, and although the Dodgers crept to within a run on a Dansby Swanson (filling in for Corey Seager, who suffered a serious hip injury in Game 4) HR, Ryan Weathers shut them down over the final 2 innings with 3 Ks to send the Padres to their first World Series since 1998. October 21: Game 5: After managing only 4 hits in Game 4, the Rays exploded for 23 in Game 5 to go with 15 runs in a 15-4 blowout of the Angels to pull within one win of reaching the second World Series in club history. Unsurprisingly the offensive outburst came against a righty and not a lefty as Jacob Barnes opened for Abdiel Mendoza and they lit up the pair for 10 runs and 14 hits by the 4th inning. Wander set the tone as the 2nd batter of the game with his 4th postseason HR and then in the 2nd the turnstiles started. Keibert singled, Alec Bohm doubled him to 3rd, Ruiz scored on Seth Beer's groundout, Nick Schnell doubled scoring Bohm, Brandon Marsh singled, Vidal Brujan singled in Schnell, Wander singled to re-load the bases and Meadows singled in Marsh. Bohm hit his 4th HR of the series to the rocks in LF leading off the 3rd, and then they added 5 more in the 4th as they went doubles-happy with Wander, Devers, Keibert and Bohm all hitting two-baggers in the rally. Brujan continued his ridiculous postseason power binge with another HR (#5) in the 7th off Andrew Heaney, and Austin Meadows had a 2-run blast in the 9th to run up the score. Receiving the benefit of all this run support was Tyler Glasnow, who both did not put the Rays into a hole for a change and managed to get his first career postseason win. He went 5.2 2 3 3 2 8 with the 2 hits and 3 runs coming on a pair of Mike Trout longballs. There was a brief scare when the trainer came out and Glasnow was forced to leave in the 6th but it's a 2-day back spasms injury so he'll be available for the World Series should the Rays make it, and possibly even a Game 7 relief stint if things got that desperate. Scott Barlow mopped up with 1 2/3 scoreless, and Andy Ashby went the final 1 2/3, allowing a run. Max Fried will try for his 3rd win in 3 postseason starts to put the Rays in the Fall Classic against San Diego in two days' time at the Trop. Notes: The top 6 batters in the order all had at least 3 hits, with Brujan going 4-6 with a HR and 3 RBI, and Meadows and Bohm each 3-6 with a HR and 3 RBI. Somehow Seth Beer was 0-5 but he did have a walk and an RBI groundout. Brujan is now 391-5-16 in the postseason, bringing back memories of BJ Upton's run in the 2008 playoffs. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-12-2020 at 04:59 PM.

08-12-2020, 04:03 PM	#153
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	The rays win the pennant! The rays win the pennant! October 23, 2023: Game 6: Hmm...the board won't let me go all caps in the post title. So let me yell it in the text: THE RAYS WIN THE PENNANT! THE RAYS WIN THE PENNANT! And they won in the most dramatic fashion possible: A 3-run walk-off HR in the bottom of the 9th trailing 3-1 to give them their second AL crown in club history and first trip to the World Series since 2008. Alec Bohm had a monster series and he became the monster of Angels fans' nightmares by taking Eric Marinez deep the opposite way to the RF stands to give the Rays a 4-3 win and a 4-2 series win, sending sold-out Tropicana Field into a delirious frenzy. The Rays had been frustrated by Angel starter Edwar Colina, who had a 1915-like pitching line of 7 7 1 1 0 0; in fact, the Rays neither walked nor struck out in the entire game. But in-play outs they made a lot of, and it wasn't until the 7th that they broke through against Colina when Seth Beer doubled in Keibert Ruiz with 2 out but couldn't get home himself. That cut the lead to 2-1, and when Nick Anderson surrendered a longball to Luis Renfigo in the top of the 8th to restore the LA lead to 3-1, it looked like we were headed to a Game 7. But after Ty Buttrey retired his former team in order in the top of the 9th, Rafael Devers reached on an infield single, and then rookie Kyren Paris and his 70 glove booted Ruiz's ground ball to bring up Bohm who launched his bomb and joined the pantheon of LCS walk-off series-winning heroes such as Chris Chambliss, David Ortiz, Aaron Boone and Jose Altuve. Lost in the Rays' early offensive woes was another great outing from Max Fried, who went 7 4 2 1 3 4, making it his third postseason start in three outings in which he pitched at least 7 innings and gave up no more than one earned run, including a season-saving Game 3 win in Seattle after the Rays started that best-of-5 series down 0-2. It's been quite a turnaround from his dismal second half of the regular season and quite the turnaround from being last year's playoff goat by imploding in the pivotal Game 4 against Toronto in the ALDS. Bohm's homer was his fifth of the series, with all coming in the last five games and he was deservedly named Series MVP, but Fried would rank a close second. So it's now on to face the San Diego Padres, a team the Rays swept in their visit to San Diego in September. The sweep sent the Padres into a bit of a tailspin down the stretch, costing them the division title, but it mattered not as they beat the same Dodgers who finished ahead of them and in 5 games no less. They boast a great 1-2 punch of MacKenzie Gore and Michel Baez with the lefty Gore shaping up in particular as a potential problem given how they struggled with the Angels' lefties. They also missed Gore in the regular season series. Cal Quantrill, their third starter, ain't too shabby either. The rotation will go Noah Syndergaard, Tyler Glasnow, Fried and Chris Paddack, with Paddack scheduled against his old mates in Game 4 at Petco. In case you're wondering about Brendan McKay, whom the Rays traded (along with JJ Bleday) to acquire Paddack, he's not on the big league roster and it appears the Padres are now grooming him more as a hitter than pitcher, a not-shocking move considering how his pitching skills have deteriorated over the last couple of years. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-12-2020 at 05:07 PM.

08-12-2020, 10:23 PM	#154
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	2023 World Series, Games 1-2 October 26: A few notes about our World Series coverage. With the Rays involved, I will have a separate post for each "series" of games at each ballpark: Games 1-2, Games 3-5, Games 6-7. I'll also be providing the full box score for each game. Game 1: Noah Syndergaard had been fair to good in his postseason starts, but he had yet to turn in a true #1 starter performance worthy of his reputation. Until tonight. Taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning, Syndergaard went 8 very strong innings as the Rays took Game 1 of the 2023 World Series 4-2 over the San Diego Padres at Tropicana Field. He was matched up with MacKenzie Gore and the two of them put on a show. While Gore was piling up the strikeouts against the team that didn't strike out once in Game 6 of the ALCS and was the toughest team to whiff in MLB, Syndergaard was matching him pitch-for-pitch. Unfortunately the defense didn't live up to his exploits on the mound and in the 4th inning a 2-base throwing error from Wander Franco allowed Taylor Trammell to eventually score on a Manny Machado ground ball after stealing third. But Keibert Ruiz hit his first postseason homer off Gore in the bottom of the 4th to equalize, and Syndergaard despite being tied at 1 took his no-hitter into the 7th. Unfortunately he lost the no-hitter and the lead when Machado homered off him leading off the inning but just like when the Padres scored in the 4th the Rays answered right back in the bottom of the inning, this time with two runs to put them in front. Gore started running out of gas, giving up singles to Yusniel Diaz and Rylan Bannon to lead off the inning. After striking out Brandon Marsh for his 10th whiff of the game, he gave up a single to Vidal Brujan to load the bases and then walked Wander Franco to force in the tying run. One-time Rays farmhand Resly Linares relieved him and proceeded to give up an RBI single to Austin Meadows before striking out Rafael Devers to end the inning. Syndergaard made it through the 8th, finishing the game with an outstanding 8 2 2 1 0 10 line, and who else but the blazing-hot Alec Bohm homered for the 6th time in 6 games to give the Rays a big insurance run. Will Smith fanned two Padres in the 9th for the save and the Rays grabbed the early lead in the series, a welcome reversal after losing Game 1 of both the ALDS and ALCS. Despite what the box score story says below, Tyler Glasnow will be going against Michel Baez in Game 2 tomorrow. Game 2: Whoa, oh, we're halfway there.... The Rays jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the 2023 World Series with an 8-4 win over the San Diego Padres behind the strong pitching of Tyler Glasnow, who had his best-ever postseason start. Glasnow was 6 5 0 0 2 10 with the only drawback being it took him 120 pitches to get through 6 as a lot of his strikeouts came on full counts. Still it was a dominant performance the likes of which he often provides in the regular season but has struggled to provide in October. The offense faced another tough customer in Michel Baez, who had won 23 games this year between the regular season and postseason. Baez didn't have any problem striking out the tough-to-whiff Rays with 8 in his 5 innings but between those strikeouts the Rays managed to get to him several times. Seth Beer kick-started the offense with a solo homer in the 2nd, Rafael Devers had RBI doubles in the 3rd and the 5th, a run scored on an error, and then Brandon Marsh delivered the dagger with a 3-run HR off him in the 6th before Baez could retire a batter in the inning. Beer delivered another run in the 7th when Alec Bohm and he each doubled as the team banged out 7 extra-base hits in the game. The bullpen was shaky with Ty Buttrey and Shane McClanahan each allowing a pair of runs but Jasseel De La Cruz closed things out in the 9th to send the series back to San Diego with the Rays looking to take a commanding 3-0 lead with Max Fried against Luis Patino (again, ignore the game story below, OOTP would have me start Chris Paddack all 7 games it seems). Last edited by Art Deco; 08-13-2020 at 08:56 AM.

08-13-2020, 12:24 PM	#155
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	2023 World Series, Games 3-5 October 29: Game 3: Scott Barlow and Andy Ashby. Anyone following this team during the season will recognize those two as the big offseason bullpen acquisitions who turned out to be severe disappointments in the regular season. In fact I referred to them to at one point as "partners in arson" and Ashby was demoted to AAA Durham for about a month at mid-season. But the two of them were called on today in Game 3 of the World Series, and both responded effectively as part of 5 1/3 shutout innings from six different relievers in a 6-5 win over the San Diego Padres to put the Rays one win away from their first-ever World Championship. The Rays twice took the lead off Luis Patino and starter Max Fried twice gave it back. Vidal Brujan kept up his postseason power surge by homering to give them a 1-0 lead in the third, but Fried allowed 2 runs in the bottom of the inning. Rafael Devers then hooked a 2-run homer around the RF foul pole in the 4th to make it 3-2 Rays, but Fried coughed up that lead too, allowing 3 runs and leaving with the bases loaded and 2 out. Enter Barlow to face Rhys Hoskins, and he got a lazy fly ball to get out of the inning and to keep the Padres from expanding their 5-3 lead. Ty Buttrey, who allowed a pair of runs in Game 2, got through the 5th without incident, and that set the stage for the Rays' comeback in the top of the 6th. With one out, Keibert Ruiz singled, Alec Bohm walked, and then Brandon Marsh doubled to score Ruiz and send Bohm to 3rd. Nick Schnell's groundout brought Bohm home with the tying run, and pinch-hitter Seth Beer (on the pine with no DH in an NL park) greeted reliever Reggie Lawson with an opposite field single to left to score Marsh and make it 6-5. There were still 4 innings to piece together from the bullpen from there, and Jose Alvarado made an early appearance and got through the 6th with a couple of lefties due up. He hung around to get the leadoff lefty in the 7th, and Nick Anderson got a couple of strikeouts after walking Hoskins. The Rays mounted a rally in the 8th that brought the pitcher's spot to the plate, so Rylan Bannon pinch-hit for Anderson but flew out, meaning someone else would have to take over the 8th. With a couple of lefties due up, I could have gone to Will Smith for a 2-inning save but that might have been pushing it so I turned to Ashby, who had pitched much better toward the end of the season. Well he came through big-time getting a 1-2-3 8th inning and striking out Taylor Trammell to end it. Will Smith then pitched the 9th and he struck out Fernando Tatis Jr. and Trent Grisham before getting Manny Machado to ground out to nail down the save, his 3rd of the postseason as Buttrey picked up the win. Fried had his first poor start of the postseason, going 3.2 8 5 5 3 4 after 3 brilliant starts, but the bullpen and the offense picked him up and now the team is one win from destiny. And the game story below is finally correct for once: Chris Paddack will actually start Game 4 against his old team. Also the headline is hilarious: "move to within 1 game of Round 5". There's a Round 5????? October 30: Game 4: THE RAYS ARE WORLD CHAMPIONS!!! Rafael Devers' 2-run homer in the 1st and Austin Meadows' 3-run shot in the 3rd paced the Rays to a 6-3 win and a World Series sweep of the San Diego Padres for their first-ever title. Chris Paddack got the win against his former teammates, going 5 5 3 3 0 7 and then the bullpen, which has been lights-out since early in the ALDS, saw four pitchers each throw a scoreless inning to preserve the 6-3 lead they held since the 5th. The Rays jumped all over Cal Quantrill, who had been excellent in each prior series for San Diego, when Meadows singled with two out and Devers homered for the second consecutive day. His 2 HR and 6 RBI in the 4 games earned him series MVP. In the 3rd it was Meadows' turn to drive in the runs with a 3-run blast after Brujan doubled and Wander walked to start the inning. Wander's RBI groundout in the 4th made it 6-0 after Nick Schnell had walked, was bunted over by Paddack and Brujan singled Schnell to 3rd. But San Diego wasn't going to go quietly as Paddack gave up his obligatory longball(s). Trent Grisham hit a 2-out, 2-run HR to make it 6-2, and the following batter Rhys Hoskins tripled, but Paddack whiffed Eric Hosmer to strand him on 3rd. Luis Campusano had a solo shot in the bottom of the 5th to make it 6-3, and when Paddack's turn at bat came up in to the top of the 6th he was pinch hit for, having thrown 97 pitches. Ty Buttrey got the 6th and hit a man but got the other three out, Jasseel De La Cruz whiffed a pair around a walk in the 7th (he had to leave the inning hurt after the last batter, we'll have to see how he is), Nick Anderson finished the season in his typical dominant form with a perfect inning with two strikeouts, and Will Smith nabbed the save in the 9th, giving up a one-out single but getting Campusano to hit into a 5-4-3 around-the-horn double play to start the celebrations and the dogpile. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-13-2020 at 05:10 PM.

08-13-2020, 05:28 PM	#156
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	2023-2024 Offseason, Part 1 It's party time in the Tampa Bay area as the Rays had their World Series parade celebration along Central Avenue in downtown St. Petersburg. Now the task of defending the title starts with the offseason. But first a look at the trophy: Word from the bossman: And the more important word from the bossman: By way of comparison, our 2023 payroll was $116.5M, and with everyone coming back (except Syndergaard and TJ McFarland, who are free agents), the payroll would be $134.9M based on arbitration estimates. There are a few players not coming back at their salaries (I'm not paying Ty Buttrey $7.5M to be a middle reliever, for example) so we will have plenty of money to spend. The dilemma now becomes how much to tinker with a 115-win team that just swept the World Series, especially given the glut of talent that's major-league ready but without a spot. Sure I'd love to have Syndergaard back, but I'm not going to give him a 6-7 year contract (3 might be the most I'd consider), but I bring him back, what about Dustin May, Asa Lacy and Shane Baz at Durham? All of them should be pitching in the majors. Hell, Shane McClanahan deserves to start. Fried and Paddack are going into their last year of arbitration and will be FAs next winter so perhaps I deal one of them. It's good to know money's not going to be an issue but I'm not going to spend it just to spend it. Checked in with Syndergaard, and here's what he's looking for: Nope. NOTABLE RETIREMENTS: Ex-Rays: Evan Longoria, Chaz Roe, Jake Odorizzi Others: Joey Votto, Daniel Murphy, Corey Kluber, Todd Frazier, Kyle Seager, Yan Gomes, Dellin Betances Surprise, surprise: GLASNOW WINS AL CY YOUNG AWARD I have to admit I voted for Cole, more innings, more Ks, higher WAR, but I suppose Glasnow's ERA crown tilted it in his favor. And Tyler Glasnow is 30? Where do the years go? Elsewhere, Mike Soroka (22-4) won the NL Cy Young, Vlad Jr. made it two-for-two as AL MVP after winning the Triple Crown, and Cody Bellinger and his 65 HRs won the NL MVP. Oh yeah, and I won AL Manager of the Year for the second straight season. Wander Franco finished 3rd in the AL MVP voting which is fine, but if you had told me when I bought OOTP back in April that he'd finish just behind Mike Brosseau I would have asked for my $40 back. BIG TRADE ALERT!! Well this was a biggie. Time to start dealing from our prospects & outfield glut and in the process we got one of the best young starters in baseball who's signed through 2027 on a team-friendly deal. Manning was 6th in MLB in pitching WAR (5.5) this past season, going 15-14, 3.62 with a mediocre Detroit team with an outstanding 59/243 K/BB ratio in 211 IP. There's really nothing not to like here. His first couple of seasons in MLB were a bit of a learning process but even in a down year in 2022 with the "happy fun ball" he still earned 2.4 WAR. Of course Detroit likely nets more raw talent in this deal and I may have made them the best team in the AL Central next year if Baz can approach what Manning has done. He certainly has the stuff and potential to (he may never match Manning's control though) and Kirilloff if given a chance to play every day should hit at least .290 with 25 HR. We've got our ace replacement for Syndergaard, still have a bunch of fine young pitchers coming up (Lacy, Jimmy Lewis, Seth Johnson, Mack Anglin) and of course even with Kirilloff dealt we still have a glut of quality OF prospects. And we actually added one here in Ashford, who has serious potential with 70 current speed and 55 current power, and he's a 60 in RF. He hasn't played above rookie ball but the tools are undeniable, he just needs to make enough contact. Finally, the deal opens up a 40-man spot which is a big deal this offseason because I'm really looking at losing someone good in Rule 5 this time. Some free agent news: So he signs for nearly $30M/year with the Cards. Glad he went back to the NL obviously, and we'll get a comp pick as of course I made him the 1-year, $15M qualifying offer. Was the trade last offseason with the Mets worth it? Flags fly forever, I doubt Snell would have done much better (even though he did with the Mets) and we didn't miss Yonny Chirinos (whom the Mets signed to a 3-year extension as well). And the comp pick could turn out to be an excellent prospect. By the way, I got a message that the fan interest almost completely crashed when Syndergaard signed with St. Louis, I guess that World Series win a month ago is forgotten. Of more concern is that the Red Sox acquired Jesse Winker from the Reds for a couple of prospects. Winker's a consistent 25-30 HR, .290-.300 hitter. I just wonder where they'll play him since they have Ozuna in LF and Verdugo in RF and I don't think he's a CF. He should definitely make their lineup scarier in some fashion, though, and a lot will depend on Abraham Toro repeating his breakout year (he did slump in September). The Sox think Toro's breakout is real, though, as they gave him a 5-year contract extension. December 7: Designated P Tanner Dodson and P Dany Jimenez for assignment and placed them on waivers. Unlike previous seasons where I had enough 40-man room that I dealt some Rule 5-eligible guys rather than possibly lose them, this year it's about opening spots on the 40-man. Dodson has good stuff but atrocious control, and Jimenez is making $2.2M so if someone claims him so be it. Needed the spots for Heston Kjerstad and Nick Frasso, and I still need a couple of more spots for the likes of Jhon Diaz, Patrick Bailey, and Jimmy Lewis. Kind of resigned to losing Owen Miller even though (and because) he's an ideal MI backup and Luke Little possibly. December 12: Designated P Austin Franklin for assignment and placed him on waivers; Franklin was claimed by Washington. Assigned P Tanner Dodson and P Dany Jimenez to AAA Durham. Franklin was the next choice to go to open up a 40-man spot, for Jimmy Lewis. Unfortunately he didn't sneak through waivers like the other two as Dodson's inconsistency and Jimenez's salary were enough for other teams to give them a pass. MORE BIG TRADE NEWS! Whenever a fanbase thinks a young player isn't playing enough or needs to be promoted, the #Free(PlayerName) hashtags hit social media. Well this trade is a #Free(PlayerName) trade. Yusniel Diaz deserves to play every day somewhere instead of where he's spent the last 2 1/2 seasons on the short end of a RF platoon as a 4th outfielder. And Clarke Schmidt is probably already pitching IRL for the Yankees by the end of the 2020 season while in this save he's been stuck at Durham for 3 years. So best of luck to these guys in Milwaukee. And in return we get a guy I've coveted for a long time and also deserves a #FreeKestonHiura hashtag as the AI, after playing him every day in 2020 and being an All-Star, has turned him into a part-time player the last 3 seasons rather inexplicably. Luis Urias is pretty good himself, but... Anyway Hiura isn't probably going to get everyday at-bats with us either, given that we have a guy named Vidal Brujan at 2B. But he will DH against lefties and spell Brujan (and spell Wander occasionally with Brujan sliding to SS) and who knows, maybe he takes at-bats from Seth Beer against RHP at DH. Anyway his contract is extremely cheap (he's signed for the next 4 seasons at a total of $30M combined) and he can rake. We weren't terrible against lefties last year (although we often could be) but we could have been better and my plans now are to platoon Spencer Torkelson with Nick Schnell in left, meaning Torkelson and Hiura replace Diaz and Bannon as the Schnell/Beer platoon partners, which to me is a clear upgrade. This of course means Bannon is now expendable as the bench would be Ronaldo, Casas, Hiura and Torkelson vs RHP. And yes the deal opens a 40-man spot too. December 19: The Rule 5 Draft The Rule 5 draft was a bore, with only two players taken, none of whom were ours. Yes, this means the Rockies for once did not take someone from us. Some free agent updates: The Dodgers as always sign all the big-name relievers, they got Aroldis Chapman for 1 yr/$5M, Milwaukee shelled out $39M over 3 years for Kenta Maeda, the Rockies signed soft-tossing Brad Keller for 4/34.6 which should get ugly real fast, and 34-year-old Kyle Hendricks, although still pitching well, got 5/85 to stay with the Cubs in a deal that shouldn't age well. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-14-2020 at 10:35 AM.

08-14-2020, 10:49 AM	#157
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	2023-24 Offseason Part 2 Things have been pretty quiet at Rays central the last month or so as we're now into mid-January. The Cardinals offered us Dylan Carlson for Ronaldo Hernandez, which in a vacuum is very intriguing except for 1) we have the outfield covered three times over, 2) Carlson after a brilliant sophomore season in 2022 slumped badly last year, and 3) I was still intrigued by the fact he's a switch-hitter but then saw his splits and he seriously struggles with lefties, so he's a switch-hitter in name only. Plus, while Chris Betts is ready for MLB he's a lefty hitter too and l like Ronaldo's right-handed bat. Still looking to move Trevor Larnach, though. I checked out the Detroit home page with their projected lineup and they're showing Kirilloff as their #3 hitter and starter in RF, good for him, but I didn't see Shane Baz in their rotation because they're making him their closer (!). Yusniel is projected to start in RF for Milwaukee, but I didn't see Clarke Schmidt in their rotation, would hate to see him stuck in AAA again. Speaking of old players of ours, Brendan McKay was released by the Padres and signed to a minor-league deal by the Mets where he's listed as a pitcher again. Meanwhile in the free agent sweepstakes, one of the big dominos fell when Philadelphia signed Miguel Sano to a 6/85 deal, and the Blue Jays signed Byron Buxton to a 7/128(!) contract. Buxton did well for himself building his value with the 1-year contract he signed with Baltimore last year just before spring training, he stayed healthy and had a big 32 HR/92 RBI season. We'll see if stays healthy in Toronto. Flamethrower Jordan Hicks signed a 3/15 deal with Milwaukee, and Alex Bregman signed a 7/251 extension in Houston. And in his first year of eligibility, Adrian Beltre was elected to the Hall of Fame with 76% of the vote. He was the only inductee as Gary Sheffield got up to 65% but fell off the ballot in his last year. January 22: Ty Buttrey will bring his Rays World Series ring to Chicago as he signed a 2/10.6 deal with the Cubs. But in the big news of the day, the Miami Marlins are now the Miami Roughnecks! Here's the logo (eh): January 24: Caleb Smith will continue to haunt us. The Oriole lefty who's always given us fits was signed to a 3/33 deal by the Red Sox today. I should have signed him just to keep him from pitching against us. Also the Padres signed Tyler Zombro to a minor-league deal. He had an outstanding season at Durham last year but was stuck there. I offered him another minor-league contract but I don't blame him for going elsewhere. TRADE NEWS: Well we found Trevor Larnach a home. I think he's better than Chad Allen, who's penciled in for RF in Pittsburgh at the moment. Delgadillo is a marginal prospect, he's a groundballer who throws 91-93 so I doubt we'll miss him. The return is Mitch Keller, who can bring it, but someone we'll have to work with to get his control under control. Keller's out of options so he'll make the team as a middle reliever, which is the impetus for me to do something I've been thinking about: sending Shane McClanahan back to Durham to be a full-time starter. He regressed a bit this year in relief but his stuff is still great. Max Fried and Chris Paddack are free agents next winter so there will probably be a couple of holes in the rotation to fill and I'd like to think Mac can be one of them, perhaps along with Asa Lacy who's also ticketed for a return to Durham. Anyway, Keller can take over Mac's long relief role and start if necessary. The other guy in the deal, Price, is a control artist from Air Force who probably won't amount to much but he'll at least take Delgadillo's spot in the organization. January 29: Brandon Nimmo signed a 1-year, $9.7M deal with Texas. Also in a shock move, Trevor Story is retiring from the Cubs at age 32 to be more involved with his church. INJURY UPDATE: Uh..good news, I guess? Ryan was supposed to be out until the second half of the season after going down with a torn UCL and undergoing TJS last May. He's on the 60-day DL and really wasn't in my immediate plans. At the moment I neither have a spot for him on my 40-man nor my staff, so I'm going to have to figure out something. February 15: Signed P Dylan Bundy to a minor league contract. Something will have to go horribly wrong if we end up purchasing Bundy's contract from Durham, but he should help out that staff. "Should", I say as last year's vet pitchers Brandon Workman and Tony Cingrani turned out to be disasters. Also, ex-Ray from last season TJ McFarland signed with the team we beat in the World Series, the Padres, for 1 year and $2.5M. Of course he ended up being left off the playoff roster when Paddack had the back spasms and we needed Daniel Lynch, who did come through in Game 4 of the ALDS. February 18: Traded P Drew Strotman to the Kansas City Royals for OF Erickvi Celedonio, activated P Joe Ryan from the 60-day IL. Had to make 40-man room for Joe Ryan, and I wasn't going to lose Strotman for nothing like I did Austin Franklin. Celedonio is a 23-year-old speedster with 55 gap power and 50 HR power (a 50 rating, not 50-HR power) who'll probably be thrown into a future trade someday. Ryan, meanwhile, has one option year left and he may very well be in the Durham rotation. I put Ryan on the block to see if I could get a prospect and didn't get one offer, now that he's on the 40-man, I might be willing to deal him for a vet. February 21: Sonny Gray signed a 1-year, $5.5M deal with the Pirates. A good signing, if Gray can stay healthy which is always a big "if". February 29: (Yeah, it's a leap year) The Orioles signed Max Scherzer to a 1-year, $3.5M deal. An excellent gamble for them, and I was considering offering Scherzer a contract but his stuff and velocity is way down after missing most of last year with a partially torn UCL. OOTP labels him as "wrecked". Plus I had flashbacks to Zack Greinke 2022 as well. But for a pitching-starved team like Baltimore it's a no-lose move, and I'm not thrilled he's in the division. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-14-2020 at 02:43 PM.

08-14-2020, 08:08 PM	#158
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	2024 Spring Training / Opening Day Roster Spring training was pretty uneventful, with only one injury: Scott Barlow strained his oblique and will miss the first six weeks of the season. We've got a lot of cover in the pen so this won't be a critical blow. One thing I did not realize is that Asa Lacy is out of options, so he's making the team. As for performances, Spencer Torkelson had a big spring, going 375/438/571 in 56 AB, although he "only" hit 3 HR (and 2 came in the first game of spring training). Heston Kjerstad started hot with 2 HR and 11 RBI in his first 8 games, but finished 0-15. Nothing remarkable on the pitching side to report, most everyone looked sharp with a few hiccups here and there. TRADE NEWS: As alluded to in the Hiura trade commentary, Bannon was expendable and he was dealt to the White Sox for a couple of decent prospects. Christidis has 70 current/80 potential stuff and pitched very well as a starter but I could also see him becoming an elite reliever. Kehoe was the Sox' 1st round pick in 2022 and is a CF. Despite our OF glut, most of the good ones are corner guys and we were a bit thin in the middle. 2024 OPENING DAY ROSTER: C: Keibert Ruiz, Ronaldo Hernandez 1B: Alec Bohm 2B: Vidal Brujan SS: Wander Franco 3B: Rafael Devers IF: Triston Casas, Keston Hiura LF: Nick Schnell CF: Brandon Marsh RF: Austin Meadows OF: Spencer Torkelson DH: Seth Beer I want to get Torkelson's bat in there as much as possible, so while he will definitely platoon with Schnell he'll also fill in for Bohm and Beer from time-to-time against righties In fact those four are probably going to get rotated around, and of course Casas figures in too. The one drawback of dealing Yusniel is that I don't have a true backup CF, Schnell will likely be the one to fill in for him as he can fake it there from time-to-time. SP: Tyler Glasnow, Matt Manning, Max Fried, Chris Paddack, Dustin May LR: Asa Lacy, Daniel Lynch MR: Mitch Keller, Aaron Ashby SU: Jasseel De La Cruz, Jose Alvarado, Nick Anderson CL: Will Smith A bit lefty-heavy in the pen (5 vs 3) with us having to keep Lacy, although it could be said he's just taking McClanahan's role. McClanahan will start at Durham with an eye to having him as a starter next year, and Joe Ryan of course was sent to Durham as well. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-14-2020 at 08:23 PM.

08-14-2020, 09:37 PM	#159
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	April 7-10, 2024: vs NY Yankees (3) Game 1: Opening Day at the Trop was quite the affair, with a pre-game ceremony in which the Rays received their World Series rings and a fired-up crowd greeted the New York Yankees. The pitching matchup was first-rate, with defending AL Cy Young winner Tyler Glasnow versus the guy many thought should have won the award, Gerrit Cole. And the matchup lived up to its billing through the first half of the game as we went scoreless until the bottom of the 5th when the Rays pushed across a couple of runs. Seth Beer led off with a walk, Nick Schnell singled, and a Brandon Marsh fly ball sent Beer to 3rd. Vidal Brujan hit into a fielder's choice to score Beer, and then he stole second and scored on a Wander Franco single. Meanwhile Glasnow was dealing but finally ran into trouble in the 7th when a 2-out double from Yankee rookie 3B Skyler Messinger brought home a run. Glasnow then walked Mike Tauchman leaving with an excellent 6.2 4 1 1 1 7 line, and Nick Anderson got the final out to keep it 2-1. The Rays then added 2 more in the bottom of the 7th, chasing Cole, on doubles from Schnell (his 3rd hit of the game) and Brujan, and a Rafael Devers sac fly. Anderson got Luke Voit to start the 8th, and although Jose Alvarado gave up a hit and a walk, he whiffed Giancarlo Stanton who represented the tying run at the plate. Will Smith got a pair of Ks to start the 9th and after Brujan booted what would have been the final out, Smith got a popup to end the game and grab save #1 in the 4-1 win. In addition to Schnell, Wander had 3 hits as well as they outhit the Yankees 10-5. The Rays game was one of only 3 on opening day as I'm using the 2016 schedule in order to get the rotating interleague matchups right as this year they'll play the NL Central in addition to the "rivalry" games with the Miami Marl...er, Roughnecks. They're off on the 8th while everyone else opened up. Boston lost to Pittsburgh 6-4 and Trevor Larnach had a HR for the Pirates (an insurance run in the 9th), Tigers OF phenom Riley Greene had a HR and 7 RBI in his MLB debut in a 13-5 win over the White Sox that also saw Alex Kirilloff go 0-3. Game 2: Matt Manning made his Rays debut and he was great...until he got hurt. Manning went 5.2 5 1 1 1 5 but had to leave in the 6th with elbow tendinitis and will be out 4 weeks. It put a damper on what was an otherwise successful second game for the Rays as they drubbed the Yankees 8-3. Wander Franco hit a pair of HRs and drove in 3 runs in his first 2 at-bats, Rafael Devers had a 2-run triple and Brandon Marsh had an RBI double. Jasseel De La Cruz relieved Manning and got out of the 6th but gave up a couple of runs in the 7th that got the Yankees within 4-3, with the second run coming in when Jose Alvarado gave up an RBI single to another of the Yankee rookies, LF Kyle Isbel. Nick Anderson got though the 8th with 2 strikeouts, and then the Rays broke it open with 4 in the 8th allowing Mitch Keller to make his Rays debut and throw a scoreless inning. With early season off days, we won't need a fifth starter too much and of course Daniel Lynch and Asa Lacy are candidates already on the active roster. Yusniel Diaz was 3-4 with a HR and 3 RBI for Milwaukee today and Clarke Schmidt worked 2 innings in middle relief for the Brewers, while Noah Syndergaard went 7 scoreless to beat the Cubs 1-0 in the latest on the Rays diaspora. April 9: Placed P Matt Manning on the 15-day IL with elbow tendinitis, purchased the contract of P Dany Jimenez from AAA Durham, assigned P Tanner Dodson to AAA Durham. Jimenez and Dodson had to clear waivers to come back, and they did, and Jimenez gets the call back up. Game 3: The Rays got more of a fight from the Yankees today, but it still wasn't enough as they swept the opening series with a 9-7 win. Nick Schnell continued his torrid start to the season with 3 more hits, including a 2-RBI single in the 6th that proved to be the margin of victory. They jumped out to a 4-0 lead after 2 innings and it looked like it would be another rout, but starter Max Fried allowed the first 3 hitters of the 3rd inning to reach and Gleyber Torres hit a grand slam to center to tie the game, and the Yankees added two more off him in the fourth including another Torres HR to go up 6-4. But the Rays struck back for 3 in the bottom of the inning, keyed by a 2-run Brandon Marsh double, his second of the game, before adding the two on the Schnell single in the 6th. Fried settled down after his rough first 4 innings to get the Yankees in order in the 5th and 6th, and Mitch Keller pitched a scoreless 7th before putting the leadoff man on in the eighth. With a bunch of lefties coming up, Aaron Ashby got the call and after striking out the first one, he started giving up hits and walks allowing Keller's runner to score but was helped by Austin Meadows gunning down a runner at 3rd. Nick Anderson had to come in to face Skyler Messinger with two out and got him on a groundball on the first pitch. Will Smith took over in the 9th and got a pair of strikeouts in a perfect inning for save #2, while Fried picked up the win while going 6 9 6 6 1 6. Vidal Brujan was 3-5 with a pair of ribbies, and Wander Franco ended the 3-game series 7-11 with 2 HR and 6 RBI after 2 more hits and 2 more RBI today. Also Spencer Torkelson made his MLB debut at DH, and after rolling into a double play in his first at-bat, singled to left in his second and also walked as part of a 1-3 day. Team record: 3-0. Last edited by Art Deco; 08-15-2020 at 11:23 AM.

08-15-2020, 12:28 PM	#160
Art Deco Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2020 Posts: 6,930	April 11-14, 2024: vs Toronto (3) Game 1: On a night the offense largely took off, a brilliant outing from Chris Paddack and an electric relief Rays debut from Asa Lacy helped the Rays to a 4-1 win and a 4-0 start to the season. Paddack was dealing early, with 8 Ks through 4 innings, and a Cavan Biggio RBI single was the only mark against his record. After he departed with a 6 5 1 1 0 8 line, Lacy took over with the idea of getting through the 7th but he was so good he pitched the 8th as well, ending with 2 hitless innings and 4 strikeouts. Will Smith picked up save #3, getting Bo Bichette to hit into a double play and striking out Ryan Noda to end the game. The offense only managed 5 hits on the night but did draw 5 walks, mostly off Toronto starter Simeon Woods Richardson who was also hurt by a pair of Blue Jay errors. Keibert Ruiz had 3 of the team's 5 hits, including an RBI, Nick Schnell drew a bases-loaded walk, and the big hit was Vidal Brujan's 2-run single in the 3-run 2nd inning. Game 2: Another day at the office for the Rays, who cruised to a 5-1 win behind the excellent pitching of Dustin May, who went 6 5 1 1 1 8 in his first start as a regular member of the Rays rotation. Meanwhile the offense had more success against another Toronto pitcher with 3 names, tonight battering Sean Reid-Foley for 4 runs and 7 hits in the first 2 innings before Reid-Foley had to leave with forearm stiffness. He probably also developed neck stiffness from turning to watch the Rays circle the bases. In the first, Wander singled, stole second and scored on a Rafael Devers double, and then they hit for 3 in the 2nd that started with a leadoff homer from Seth Beer (only the team's 3rd in 5 games, with Wander getting the other 2), followed by a Nick Schnell double, Keston Hiura (giving Brujan a night off) single, a Wander RBI single, and an Austin Meadows sac fly. Reid-Foley was followed by rookie Yennsy Diaz (just how many Y.Diazes are there in the league now?) who pitched 5 2/3 innings of great relief, whiffing 5 Rays before they finally got to him in the 8th for a run which scored on a Brandon Marsh infield single. In that rally Beer was hit by yet another pitch and has a 4-day thigh bruise injury so Tork and/or Casas should be getting some at-bats. May was relieved by Jose Alvarado, who struck out all 3 Jays he faced in the 7th, then Jasseel De La Cruz had a scoreless 8th. Nick Anderson was in line for the save with Will Smith in need of a rest after 3 saves in 4 games but with the extra run in the 8th Dany Jimenez was given the ball. He allowed singles to the first two batters but got a deep fly out and then a double play which he started himself to end the game as the Rays remain undefeated to start the year. Wander had 3 more hits (and a couple of steals) and is now 10 for 20. Rays disapora update: The Royals put Drew Strotman in their rotation but his debut did not go so well as he allowed 5 runs in 3 innings at Houston, admittedly a tough place to pitch. Also for the Royals another former Rays property whom we acquired twice and dealt twice, JJ Bleday, was 2-4 with his first MLB homer. The Royals claimed Bleday on waivers from San Diego, which now has nothing to show for the Chris Paddack deal after they released Brendan McKay. Meanwhile Strotman's partner in crime, Austin Franklin, made his Nationals debut today with 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief with 3 strikeouts. Durham update: The move-Shane-McClanahan-to-the-starting-rotation experiment had an early success: 7.2 3 0 0 1 8 on only 89 pitches against Charlotte today in an 8-0 Bulls win that saw Chris Betts, Owen Miller and Niko Hulsizer go deep. Game 3: It was the Tork and Tyler show tonight at the Trop as the Rays made it 6 straight wins to start the year with a 6-3 triumph. In the 2nd inning Spencer Torkelson drilled his first MLB HR of many to come with a 2-run oppo taco to the RF stands to give the Rays the lead to stay, after Vlad Jr. hit a 517-ft missile against Tyler Glasnow in the 1st to give the Jays a brief lead. Tork later singled and had an RBI double in the 7th to go 3-4 with the HR and 3 RBI. On the pitching side Glasnow was untouchable after the Vlad blast, going 7 3 1 1 1 8 in another great start from the staff. With the game 6-1, Aaron Ashby came on and struck out the first two lefties he faced but two men on. Since the worst that could happen was 6-4 I let him pitch to Vlad, who made it 6-3 with a 2-run double. Jasseel De La Cruz got Bo Bichette to end the inning, and with Will Smith still a bit tired and several lefties due up, Jose Alvarado got the save opportunity and cashed it in, getting a DP to erase a leadoff single and a pop-up to end it. In non-Tork offensive news, Vidal Brujan was 3-5 with 2 steals and an RBI, Wander remains at .500 with 2 more hits and a ribbie, Triston Casas spelled Alec Bohm and was 2-3 with a walk, and Rafael Devers hit his first homer of the year in the 3rd off Matt Wisler, whom the Rays tattooed for 12 hits in 5.2 innings. Game 4: Another great start from the rotation and the bats came alive in the late innings for what turned out to be an 8-2 thumping of the Jays and a 7-0 start to the season. Daniel Lynch, filling in for Matt Manning, was an excellent 6 3 1 1 2 7 with his only blemish being - you guessed it - a Vlad Jr. HR. Guerrero had 3 of the Jays 5 hits for the entire game as Lynch was in control for the most part. Asa Lacy came on again and was impressive, although he did allow a solo HR to Brett Phillips he was otherwise untouched in his 2 innings with a pair of Ks, and once the game was blown open again in the 8th Mitch Keller finished instead of Will Smith and had a pair of strikeouts around a Vlad double. As mentioned the offense started slow with only 2 runs through the first 5 innings, scoring one on a DP groundout and the other on a Wander double. But they added a pair in the 6th on Austin Meadows' 1st longball of the year and a RBI double for Keston Hiura for his first big hit as a Ray. A Meadows sac fly plated a run in the 7th and then Brandon Marsh went deep for the first time this year himself, into the Rays tank to score 3 for the final margin. The Rays had 13 hits on the day with Alec Bohm's 3 leading the way. Spencer Torkelson was 0-4 as the only Ray not to reach base. Team record: 7-0. This didn't come as a surprise: Last edited by Art Deco; 08-15-2020 at 04:12 PM.