The 2020 (and beyond) Tampa Bay Rays

[Art Deco]

Getting a leg up...



Everything is 10-4 with the Rays these days as they took their second consecutive ALCS win by that scoreline to nose ahead 2-1 in the series. A pair of Cleveland errors opened the door for a 4-run 3rd which put the Rays ahead to stay, and it was a team effort as 7 of the 9 hitters drove in at least one run with Tony Cordova staying scorching hot with 3 more hits including a key RBI double in that 3rd inning. Gordie Ager strugged early but settled down to earn the win. Dan Robinson will try to make it 3-1 Rays tomorrow.

Meanwhile in the NLCS the Cubs stay alive for another day thanks to a dramatic 9th-inning win:

[Art Deco]

One win away...



It's Tony Cordova's world, and we're all just living in it. The Rays' catcher has to be the front-runner for ALCS MVP as he blasted a 3-run homer to key the Rays' 6-3 win over Cleveland as Tampa Bay went up 3-1 in the series and will look to close it out behind Jim Brophy tomorrow. The Rays also got solo homers from Doug Johns and Dave Frick to back a decent outing from Dan Robinson, who found himself in trouble in the first with a run allowed and the bases loaded, but settled down until tiring in the 6th. The pen took over from there and gave Cleveland nothing over the final 3 1/3.

Meanwhile the Cubs will not go quietly into the good night as they beat Washington again to force the series back to our nation's capital:

[Art Deco]

So close yet so far...



It's very rare for the Rays bullpen to fail them in the playoffs, but that's what happened today as Willie Minier blew a 2-0 lead in the 9th and allowed the Guardians to extend the series to a Game 6 in Tampa. As a result excellent performances from Jim Brophy (7 shutout innings) and Jose Castillo (who finally broke out of his playoff slump with his first homer and an RBI double). Greg Bookhart will hope to pitch better than he did in Game 2 when we return to Publix Park in two days.

[Art Deco]

Thanks to former Ray Brad Jackson the Nationals took care of business in Game 6 and advance to their first World Series since winning it in 2019:

[Art Deco]

Bring on the Nats...



The Drive for Five marches on to the World Series, where the Rays will look to win their 5th straight title and equal the 1949-53 Yankees as MLB's only five-peaters. That's thanks to a 5-0 win over Cleveland in Game 6 at Publix Park behind a great outing from Greg Bookhart, more great bullpen work, and another big homer from Tomas Laboy, whose 3-run shot in the 2nd sent them on their way. Tony Cordova had a pair of doubles to cap his great series and was a deserving MVP. Now we'll face Washington starting with Game 1 at Publix Park with Gordie Ager toeing the rubber.

[Art Deco]

So what else is new?...



For the third straight postseason series the Rays have dropped the opener, this time held in check by one of the top pitchers in the game, James Bligen, and let down by the bullpen with every reliever allowing at least a run and (except for Jon Harbour) someone else's runners to score. In fact the final could have been worse had Rays OFs not thrown out two runners at the plate. At least Tony Cordova stayed red-hot with a homer. Jim Brophy will go tomorrow to try and make sure we don't start out 0-2.

[Art Deco]

Not great, Bob!



Typically when the Rays get to the World Series it's almost a fait accompli that they'll win it, having won the last 13 times they played in the Fall Classic and only losing once in their dynastic run, to 2024 vs the Dodgers. But after another 6-2 loss to the Nationals at Publix Park, they'll now have to win 4 of the next 5 against Washington to keep that streak intact, as well as their current streak of 4 straight Series wins. It looked good early with a 2-0 lead against former Ray Brad Jackson and Jim Brophy was in dominant form, not allowing a hit until the 5th. But it went bad for Brophy in the 6th and he didn't help his own cause by dropping a toss at first base for an error, prolonging the inning. It probably didn't make a difference as Jackson gave his old teammates nothing after those early runs and to add insult to injury another former Ray Jeff Brockman came on and set them down in the final 2 innings. So now Greg Bookhart will look to get the Rays in the win column in the nation's capital two days from now.

[Art Deco]

The empire strikes back...



It was bombs away for the Rays today as they climbed back into the series with a 7-2 win behind 4 homers with Dan Gregory's 3-run shot breaking the game open. But it was a costly win as Greg Bookhart had to leave in the 4th inning with what was diagnosed after the game as a torn labrum. The lefty of course will not be available for a potential Game 7 start and probably won't be ready for the start of the 2046 season as it's a 5-month injury. Plus it's no guarantee that he'll come back as the pitcher he was. Marc Gibson did a fine job in long relief and will probably get the Game 7 nod should we get there but it will be an all-hands-on-deck game in any event. Dan Robinson will try to get the series even tomorrow.

[Art Deco]

Back to even (just barely)...



The Rays were three outs away from going into a 1-3 series hole but a 9th-inning rally gave them a 6-2 win over Washington and a clean slate in the series as we're now tied at 2 games. They scored 5 times before making an out in the 9th off Nationals closer Steve Talbott after being held to only 5 hits through 8 innings. Credit as well to the bullpen for keeping the game at 2-1 long enough for the bats to strike. Gordie Ager will try to give the Rays a series advantage tomorrow before we head back to Tampa for Game 6.

[Art Deco]

One win away...



The Rays have picked themselves up off the mat after sweeping the 3 games in Washington, erasing the 0-2 deficit and putting themselves one win away from a historic 5-year run as World Champions after an 11-1 rout of the Nationals. They jumped all over Washington ace James Bligen for 2 first-inning runs and then chased him in a 6-run 3rd with Jose Castillo's bases-clearing triple the big hit. It was soon 10-0 and the only suspense was whether Gordie Ager would pitch a no-hitter. Alas he allowed a leadoff single in the 7th but he closed out his 2045 in the finest of fashion. Of course given what happened the last time they played in a World Series, Washington could have the Rays right where they want them as the road team won all 7 games in their 2019 Series win over Houston, and that's what's happened so far in this one. Jim Brophy will try to make sure history doesn't repeat in two days in Tampa.

[Art Deco]

Gonna need one more game...



The only thing scary about tonight's Halloween Game 6 of the World Series was Rays pitching, battered for 9 runs on 15 hits as the Nationals forced a Game 7 tomorrow night. Well, also the Rays' baserunning was scary as they had two men thrown out on the bases, plus another caught stealing, and hit into 3 doubles plays. The offense kept coming back but the pitching kept giving up runs, and now they'll have to go with substitute starter Marc Gibson tomorrow in Game 7 with Greg Bookhart injured. Gibson will be backed by Caleb Ramos in long relief should he be needed.

[Art Deco]

What a way to make history!



In what will go down as one of the all-time great World Series Game 7s, the Rays scored three times in the bottom of the 9th to come from behind and beat Washington 6-5 to take their fifth straight World Series championship, tying the 1949-53 Yankees for the longest such run. Dave Frick had the game of his life, hitting a pair of 2-run homers and an RBI double including the game-tying round-tripper in the bottom of the 9th and was deservedly named Series MVP. The winning run came after Frick's homer when two batters later Mario Saro singled, stole second, went to third on a bad throw by the catcher, and scored on Seth Williams' sac fly to set off pandemonium at Publix Park. Saro wasn't even supposed to be in the game but was pressed into duty when Dan Gregory was injured (not seriously) in the 1st inning. Until that 9th it looked like more of the same in the home games in this series as Washington was getting all the key hits and keeping the Rays' lethal offense in check outside of Frick. Despite his line, Marc Gibson pitched well as 2 of the 3 runs he allowed came after he left the game, and the bullpen "big 3" of Satoshi Sato, Ben Moses and Willie Minier did their jobs to keep the game in reach.

The win by the Rays was also the first by a home team in this series and the first in the last 13 World Series games the Nationals have played after their experience in 2019.

Here's a look at the scene after the winning run scored, please ignore the Play-by-Play which is still messed up on walk-offs in OOTP23:

[Art Deco]

Here's a look at the trophy:



And here are the postseason stats:



The hitting heroes of this postseason came from the bottom of the order with Tony Cordova's consistent production, Dave Frick's massive Game 7, and Tomas Laboy, whose every homer seemed to be pivotal and who started the 9th-inning rally in Game 7 of the World Series.



Our pitching wasn't all that great in the postseason, which is why we ended up playing 18 of a possible 19 games. But it was good enough.

[Art Deco]

First bit of news is that Jon Harbour declined his player option and will become a free agent. He'll probably do better money-wise elsewhere and get to be a starter, and he has a ring for every finger on one of his hands so it's an unsurprising decision.

We were given a payroll of $190M for next season, and of course I always want to come in at least $20-25M short of that so my goal is $165M.

Here's what our potential salary expense looks like for next year:



If we were to keep the whole band together, it would run $218M and some of these arb-eligible guys will likely get a little more, so to get down to $165M I'm going to have to clear about $55M. The first $15.5 is easy because I'm not going to tender Mike Robichaux as that's an absurd amount for a guy who would be a middle reliever for us. The other $40M or so is going to come from the third and fourth players on that list, Jose Mendez and Dan Robinson. Both have just one year of control left, and Mario Saro is ready to take Mendez's place while we have several options to replace Robinson such as Joel Gird, Ben Moses, Tristan Goulet and top prospect Chris Krisik. Also we're not renewing Takayuri Kawamori, whom we claimed on waivers late in the season, so there's another $6.5M saved.

So Mendez and Robinson will go on the block, and...........there they go - to the team we just beat in a hard-fought World Series:



So what are we getting in return? Duran is a stud in the making:



His ratings haven't quite translated into production as he was 284/365/385 in 148 AB with the Nats last year but I'm sure he'll be fine. Mejia meanwhile is a lefty reliever with 70 stuff, 65 movement and 45 control. He was the unfortunate victim of our 9th-inning Game 7 rally as he was thrown in when Nats closer Alex Gomez had to leave the game injured. Hopefully he won't be too traumatized to pitch in Publix Park going forward.

Awards season:

* We've never been known as an elite defensive team, but Gordie Ager did win a Gold Glove at pitcher.

* Baltimore's Brad Lange was the unanimous winner of AL Reliever of the Year. 42 saves with a 0.90 ERA will do that. Willie Minier finished 5th in the voting. Over in the NL former Ray Freddy Zamora took the award as he recorded 53 saves with a 2.01 ERA. He did that despite coughing up 13 homers in 85 innings which left him with 0.5 WAR, which shows you how much that figures into the voting.

*Luis Barela (3B), Jose Mendez (LF) and Jose Castillo (DH) won Silver Slugger Awards for their respective positions.

* And we had the Rookie of the Year:



* The White Sox' Omar Guerrero won his second consecutive Cy Young, beating out Gordie Ager 181-130 and 22 first-place votes to Ager's 7 (including mine). Guerrero was 21-8, 3.24. Over in the NL, former Ray and 2041 AL Cy Young winner with us Brad Jackson took the nod thanks to his 14-8, 2.57 season in which he led MLB in ERA and of course helped the Nats to the World Series.

* Another MVP and another close vote:



After finishing in a tie last season for the MVP and winning this year's by 1 point, I'm going to call him "Landslide Luis" Barela as the Rays' 3B takes home his fourth consecutive MVP award, third with the Rays after the first one with the Phillies. Barela actually received fewer first-place votes than Mike Collin but nosed him out by a single point. Jose Mendez got the other first-place votes as Rays hitters took 4 of the 5 top spots. Barela joins Barry Bonds (2001-04) as the only players in MLB history to win the award in four consecutive seasons.

In the NL the award went to Cuban defector Jorge Robles, who hit .311-49-121 in his second MLB season with Milwaukee. He handily beat out Cincinnati's Steve Hopfensberger.

[Art Deco]

Forgot to mention this in the last post but MLB and the MLBPA have agreed that active rosters will be 28 players next season.

And also forgot to mention that a couple of former Rays aces have retired. Nate Thompson, who won the 2036 AL Cy Young Award and had a run of 62-10 over three years from 2034-36 with us hung 'em up, as did Kevin Kerstetter, who famously had an MLB-record 21-0 W/L mark in 2035 and then won 20 again in 2037 before injuries derailed his career (he never won more than 9 games in a season after that).

December 5: Former Rays reliever Chris Toombs is on the move again as he was traded by St. Louis to the White Sox.

December 7: Rays legend and future Hall of Famer Jaiden Hardaway, now 40, will extend his stay in Houston in a 2/61 deal. Although he's long in the tooth he still put up 5.4 WAR last season.

December 8: Big trade between Cleveland and Philly with the Phillies sending All-Star slugging 1B Victor Serrato to the Guardians for a package of 3 prospects including P Bob Penafor, ranked #51 overall. Serrato has hit at least 30 HR in his last 7 seasons and is coming off back-to-back 5 WAR years.

December 12: Cubs' 5-time All-Star and 4-time Silver Slugger-winning 3B Pat Joyner has done what so many Chicagoans do late in their career - move to Arizona. The 32-year-old Joyner signed a 5/124 deal with the Diamondbacks.

December 14: And the Cubs have found their Pat Joyner replacement, signing former Rays 3B Jim Gebers to a 3/55.2 deal.

December 21: Added 1B Vinny Rodriguez to the 42-man roster.

Our only add in anticipation of the Rule 5 Draft as our best prospects are either already on the 42-man or not eligible yet. V-Rod is a decent 1B prospect whom we acquired in the deal for Jose Mendoza last June.

December 22: Lost 2B Joe Bowers to Texas, 2B Eric Thevenot to Kansas City and OF Pat Moyer to Pittsburgh in the Rule 5 Draft.

Looks like something was tweaked in OOTP23 to make the Rule 5 draft move active as 16 players in total were taken. Bowers, a #2 pick of ours in 2036, was always interesting with decent pop for a MI but a questionable glove; we extended his MiLB contract last month. Thevenot was our 2nd round pick in 2042 and is your traditional slap-hitting 2B with decent speed but can't really play SS so he was doubtful to ever make the club. Moyer meanwhile needs no introduction as he was a RH platoon bat for us from 2039-41 whom we inked to a minor league deal last year. He's 35 and was 225/290/398 with 15 HR in 400 AB at Durham last year so he won't be missed. I'm kind of happy for Bowers and Thevenot to get a crack at making an MLB roster.

December 23: In perhaps the biggest free agent signing of the winter, former Giants superstar Jon Lozada went for 4/157 to St. Louis. Lozada was the NL MVP in 2043 and 2044, a 9-time All-Star with a career average of .324, a 9-time SB champ, 6-time OBP champ and has 76.3 career WAR. The only knock on him is that he's rated "fragile" and has missed about 15-20 games each of the last few years and he is 34 now.

[Art Deco]

January 3: The Hall of Fame voting is in:



Vlad Jr & Soto were no-brainers, although I'm a bit surprised Soto was closer to unanimous than Vlad. Guerrero ended his career with 735 HR, 2225 RBI, hit 321/370/553 with 118.4 WAR for his career, was MLB all-time total bases leader with 7050, 3rd in career hits with 4091 (only he, Ty Cobb and Pete Rose have reached 4K hits), 4th in HR, and 2nd in RBI. He spent a season and a half with the Rays, winning his only championship with us in 2033.

Soto of course was no slouch, second in career walks (2446) to Barry Bonds, 10 HR behind Vlad in 5th with 725, 5th all-time in runs scored, and had 136.1 WAR for his career.

Diaz had a fairly short career (12 seasons) and was done at 34, but was the most dominant lefty in his years with Texas, winning the 2029 AL Cy Young and finishing with a 165-96, 3.53 career mark and was a workhorse in his heyday with consecutive seasons of 251 and 249 IP. He jumped from 60% the year before, but two other players in a similar boat - Shohei Ohtani and Rafael Devers - saw their support plateau.

Finally from a Rays perspective, Christian Little got on the ballot this year and came through with an impressive 61.6% showing, hopefully he'll follow Diaz's path as he was one of the great strikeout pitchers of all-time.

January 16: We made a free agent signing! Japanese import SS Yuji Morioka was signed to a minor league deal but it's worth $5M if he's called up. Here are his particulars:



He's an above-average rated fielder and he has serious power, probably a 30-35 HR guy if he played every day. Incumbent backup infielder Chris Fox has turned out to be a disappointment - after he was acquired from Toronto last winter he looked like a future batting champion with a 70 contact rating but that has since been downgraded to 55. He also turned out to be a terrible fielder, with a -4.7 ZR at 2B in 80 games at the position and even worse at SS, so despite hitting .270 over 326 ABs he was only worth 0.5 WAR. Sounds like a position in need of an upgrade, and we'll attempt to deal Fox even though he's younger and cheaper.

And here's our Chris Fox trade:



O'Brien had a great rookie year with the Royals, earning 1.9 WAR for those numbers shown above. He's most likely a reliever, but still has the possibility to start if he can develop his changeup (and is ranked the #28 prospect). The details:



I did get a message that the clubhouse was disappointed to see Fox go, though. Moore, the other guy we got in the deal, is a good-fielding middle infielder with a questionable bat although he did hit .304 in AA last year.

January 18: Old friend Vinny Willard, who has become a vagabond of late, signed a minor league deal with Toronto.

February 23: Twice-former Ray Johnny Soland inked a 1/4.7 pact with Milwaukee.

February 25: We made another free agent signing, veteran righty Josh Grote:



The price was right ($1.6M) and Grote can be considered an innings-eater. He had a bit of an off-year last season due to a spike in his HR rate but otherwise is a solid 4th/5th starter, and if it doesn't work it out it's only $1.6M. A motivating factor in this signing is that Joel Gird's stuff, already borderline, was downgraded to 45 and despite good control we're not that good of a defensive team to survive that. He's out of options so I'll likely be dealing him somewhere for something.

February 27: Traded 27-year old RHP Joel Gird, 29-year old minor league LHP Jose Morales, and 22-year old minor league C Dan Jackson to the Oakland Athletics, getting 23-year old minor league RHP Tim James in return.

And there goes Gird, along with Jose Morales who was also out of options. In return we get a very intriguing dude in James who has 80 stuff and I mean *80* stuff based on what he did in High-A ball last year:



Yes, that's 141 Ks in 73 innings and 3.4 WAR. You'll see it was accompanied by 33 walks and his control is rated 35 without much potential to improve, so that will always be an issue. But if you can strike out two guys an inning, a walk or two mixed in isn't going to be too damaging. We'll start him at AA this year and see how it goes. Otherwise Jackson was a "make it work" guy, a marginal catching prospect.

March 4: The Astros signed one of our free agents, Mike Robichaux, to a 2/23.4 deal. Good luck with that I say - Robichaux was acquired to be our Satoshi Sato replacement when the lefty went down with an injury for most of the season, ended up getting hurt himself and wasn't that effective when healthy. And his control was downgraded to 40.

March 5: Old friend and all-time team saves leader Kikuo Kawase is still kicking around at 39 and signed a 1/2.2 deal with the Cubs.

March 6: My scout came in with a new report on the rehabbing Greg Bookhart, my biggest concern coming into the season after suffering a torn labrum during last year's playoffs. There was a downgrade as feared, but not too bad - down from 65 to 60 stuff and 75 to 70 movement. He's still rated as a top starter, though, and hopefully those ratings don't deteriorate any further. He won't start pitching until late this month so he'll probably miss the first couple weeks of the season as he builds up.

March 8: It took awhile but Jon Harbour finally hit it big. The Rays' swingman for the past seven years finally is getting paid as a starter, going to Milwaukee on a 4/56.8 deal.

March 11: Major news!



You didn't think we'd just let Luis Barela walk after potentially 5 straight MVP awards? Nope. This is the biggest deal in club history in terms of AAV, with Barela getting $37.6M over the next four seasons (the fourth is a player option). Dan Gregory's $24.2M/year deal comes off the books after this year and with Alex Duran in the fold we'll likely move Doug Johns and his potential $20M+ salary in arbitration next year. But it's really tough to find an elite 3B and Barela is coming off the best defensive numbers of his career last season (a + zone rating) so there's little doubt he can stay at the hot corner.

Also today a couple of former Rays catchers in the twilight of their careers signed minor league deals: Will Quintana with Milwaukee and Mike McKee with Pittsburgh. For McKee it's come full circle as he was a Pirate draftee before being acquired by us as a minor leaguer.

March 16: Despite only hitting .270 and only earning 1.3 WAR in his first season with Toronto, former Rays standout 3B Josh Beckett inked a 5/120 extension with the Jays.

[Art Deco]

Before we could finalize the OD roster we had to make a deal to send out Ismael Vargas, who was out of options and wasn't making the team with the trades for lefties Mel Mejia and Chris O'Brien. So we did this:



Vargas was a college closer we drafted out of Texas Tech with a supplemental 1st-round pick in 2041, and while he did develop and retain his 80 stuff, he could never attain any level of consistency either with the big club or at Durham. 40 control was always an issue and as you can see from the career numbers cited above, he just never got it done but he could end up thriving with the Giants. You never know. The guy we got in return in Rose has a similar flawed profile except from the right side, 70 stuff (75 potential) and while he does sport 55 control his movement is only 40 so we'll have to pick our spots for him. He's going to Durham anyway for now.

So this is what the final 28-man (remember MLB increased the roster size by 1 this winter) roster will look like:

C-Cordova, Borcado
1B-S.Williams
2B-Laboy
SS-Frick
3B-Barela
IF-Morioka, Davila
OF-Saro, Gregory, Mendez, A.Duran, Parham*
DH-J.Castillo

SP-Ager, Brophy, Moses, Gibson, Bookhart
LR-Ramos
MR-Turner, O'Brien, D.Anderson, Grote, Parham*
SU-Forbes, Mejia
CL-Sato, Minier

*two-way player

The surprise here is Juan Davila, the game's #3 prospect. He's moved up level-by-level and although he underwhelmed at Durham last year (253/331/364) he had a good spring and I really didn't want to send him to Durham for another year. He can play all the infield positions but he's behind Morioka glove-wise as the primary IF backup so he's really only going to play here or there but I have a hunch he'll hit with us.

The other surprise is Greg Bookhart, whom I had expected to start the year on rehab with Durham but looked so good in his two starts late in the spring that I deemed him ready. I'm not going to push him much past 5 innings or 75-80 pitches at first but I think he's good to go.

The toughest cut came between BJ Turner and Tristan Goulet. I think Goulet's ready for the majors but is eventually going to be a starter and I want him starting at Durham as I have enough guys who can go long (Ramos, Grote). Turner looked good in the spring and can slot in as a righty setup guy should Sean Forbes struggle this season.

So that's the team, how does BNN see them stacking up?



Pretty good as things go although 102 wins would be a "down" year for this franchise.

Next up: We open the season with 4 games at Publix Park vs Boston.

[Art Deco]

Game 1: The traditional opening day box:



Dave Frick picked up where he left off in Game 7 of the World Series by going 4-4 with 3 RBI and Dan Gregory and Tomas Laboy had big homers to lead the Rays to a 10-3 rout of the Red Sox at Publix Park. Gordie Ager allowed 3 runs on 5 hits in the first inning in a rough start to the year but gave Boston virtually nothing afterwards to get the win.

Game 2: The Rays fell 6-2 to Boston in the second game. It was a 2-1 Boston lead through 6 before relievers Josh Grote (making his Rays debut) and B.J. Turner each allowed 2-run homers to let the Red Sox put it away. Jim Brophy started and pitched well (5 3 2 2 3 5) but afterwards OSA's scouts informed me his velocity has dropped 2 MPH and his stuff was downgraded from 65 to 50 (!) which is not great at all. Dave Frick and Tomas Laboy stayed hot with 3 hits apiece.

Game 3: Ben Moses was not good at all in his first start for the Rays after spending last season in the pen as the Red Sox won in a rout 10-2. Moses was 3.1 8 7 6 1 4, allowing a homer, and Caleb Ramos wasn't much relief, allowing a couple of Moses' men to score as well as 2 of his own. Tony Cordova's 2-run homer (#1) was the Rays' offense.

Game 4: The Rays salvaged the series finale with a 9-1 shellacking of Boston as each game in this series was decisively in favor of the winner. Dave Frick's insane start to the season continued as he was 3-4 with a double and 2 RBI, making him 11 for his first 15, a cool .733 BA. Jose Castillo was 3-3 with a 3-run HR (#1) and Yuji Morioka came off the bench to hit his first MLB dinger. Marc Gibson (1-0) was solid on the mound, going 5.2 3 1 1 3 3.

Team record: 2-2. Next up: An off-day then we play two games at Yankee Stadium. New York opened their season by being swept in a 4-game series at Toronto and the Jays won again on our off-day to start 5-0.

[Art Deco]

Game 1: The Rays spoiled the Yankees' home opener by taking a 4-0 win behind a brilliant outing from Greg Bookhart. Any lingering concerns about the lefty's recovery from a torn labrum were set to rest in a 7 3 0 0 0 6 performance on 86 pitches, although the 41-degree weather helped. The game was scoreless until the 7th when Jose Castillo delivered a 2-run double. Dave Frick was 2-3 and saw his average drop to .722, and Tomas Laboy suffered his annual injury, straining an oblique and will be out two weeks.

April 4: Placed 2B Tomas Laboy on the 10-day IL with a strained oblique, recalled P Tristan Goulet from AAA Durham.

Game 2: Runs were scarce again at Yankee Stadium and the New Yorkers took a 3-1 decision to claim their first win of the season. Gordie Ager (1-1) took the loss after going 5 4 3 3 1 3 and allowing a pair of homers including one to Rays-killer Elias Aragune (I'll be glad when that guy retires or goes elsewhere, but the Yankees signed him to a 4-year extension this winter). Mario Saro singled in the only Rays run and Dave Frick was 2-3 yet again, making him an absurd 15-21 (.714) to start the season.

Team record: 3-3. Next up: 3 games in 4 days at Boston with a scheduled Friday off-day to protect the gate for the Fenway home opener.

[Art Deco]

Game 1: As they did to the Yankees, the Rays spoiled Boston's home opener at Fenway Park by taking a 5-2 win over the Red Sox. Jim Brophy (1-1) was solid in going 6.1 5 2 2 1 4 and Willie Minier notched his first save of the season. Luis Barela drove in a pair including his first homer of the season and Seth Williams was 2-4 with an RBI.

Game 2: The bullpen wasted a fine Ben Moses start as they lost a 5-4 walk-off decision to Boston. Moses was 6.1 5 1 1 2 3 and left the game in the 7th with a 3-0 lead, giving way to Satoshi Sato. The normally-reliable Sato had nothing today, facing four batters and giving up the cycle to them and it was 4-3 Boston. The Rays tied it in the 9th on a Luis Barela sac fly but the Red Sox got a double and a single off Mel Mejia (0-1) in the bottom of the inning to take the win. Jose Castillo, Seth Williams and that man Dave Frick each had 3 hits as after an 0-fer in the first game Frick is back up to .643.

Game 3: No worries about a Boston comeback today as the Rays routed the Sox 10-1 to take the series. Mario Saro had a huge game, going 4-5 with a double, homer (#1), steal and 2 RBI, Luis Barela drove in 3 including a 2-run HR (#2), and Yuji Morioka was 3-5 with 2 RBI including his 2nd homer. Dave Frick was 2-5 with a pair of doubles and an RBI but saw his average drop to .606. Marc Gibson made it 2-0 over Boston with a 5 4 1 1 2 5 outing but he needed 103 pitches to get that far.

Team record: 5-4. Next up: 3 games in Chicago against the White Sox.