The Mighty Rays

Depending on who you ask, it is either completely surprising or completely unsurprising that the Tampa Bay Rays stand on the brink of a World Series victory, having (finally!) dispatched the defending champion Boston Red Sox. Mystique and Aura have left Fenway for the dome-enclosed charm of The Trop — quite possibly the worst venue in American professional sports today. Let that not, if we can help it, detract from the greatness and beauty of this year’s Rays club. Having never really been a factor in any previous Major League season, the team was on the verge of becoming the biggest headache for statheads in the history of the game before this season: a team chock-full of young stars that somehow couldn’t win. It was like adding 10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10 and getting 65 over and over. You knew it had to change eventually, but I would guess even the most stubborn number crunchers took one look at the Tampa Twentysomethings and still said, when the compass pointed north of 90 wins, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” The Rays hadn’t just suffered through 12 consecutive losing seasons since entering the league in 1998, they had suffered through 12 horrible losing seasons. They finished out of last place exactly once, in the Red Sox’ miracle season of 2004. The then-“Devil Rays” won 70 games, and finished fourth. The Blue Jays looked up from below.

Now the Might Rays storm into the World Series, completing an odd, almost tragic superfecta: each of the four most recently-instituted expansion teams in Major League Baseball have reached the Fall Classic. The Florida Marlins won the whole shebang twice; the Diamondbacks claimed victory in 2001. The Colorado Rockies won 23 out of their final 24 games before being swept out of the title hunt by Boston. Cubs fans, Brewers fans and Pirates fans aren’t likely to see the joy in this little coincidence. It’s been 63 years since they played a World Series game at Wrigley. For that you can thank James Loney and Manny Ramirez.

It was Loney’s Game 1 grand slam that, for all intents and purposes, put the Cubs/Dodgers series out of reach: with their superior starting pitching and the superlative Manny Ramirez leading the way, the Dodgers sucked all the momentum from the North Siders and cruised into the National League Championship Series against the Phillies. Ramirez was the headline attraction of these playoffs. After he was traded by the Red Sox in late July due to a long-simmering feud with the team over a 2009 player option, Ramirez channeled his inner Barry Bonds, hitting an astonishing .396 for the remainder in the regular season (and over .500 in the playoffs), and inducing more than a few eye-rolls in the Fens. His replacement in Boston, Jason Bay, adequately filled Ramirez’s spot in the Sox’ lineup — not a Hurcelean task, but maybe a Mannychean one. Bay is not the hitter that Ramirez is, but Bay’s tall stroke has old-school power when he squares the ball up. The baseball world was ready for Red Sox/Dodgers the way it was for Red Sox/Cubs in 2003 or the NFL was for Patriots/Packers last year; instead, the two best teams in the game are those that play in a stadium unfit for anything but college kids and one whose fanbase is best known for throwing snowballs at Santa Claus during a football game.

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The Rays didn’t pound their way into the Series, even if they spent the better part of games two through five sending forget-me-nots over the outfield walls in St. Petersburg and Boston. The Rays’ 15 homers in the frame set the record for a League Championship series, but it was a slicing, defensive line-drive by Evan Longoria that tied game seven at one apiece after Dustin Pedroia’s first-run homer for Boston. Longoria, a rookie who stands six-foot-three and a terrifying presence in the batter’s box, was already one of the great stories of the postseason for his tape-measure home runs, but this time he used his massive frame to deflect a ball just down the first-base line with a runner on second base. He was hopelessly late on the ball, but, like the best hitters, if you’re not hitting the ball out of the yard it doesn’t matter much where you hit it, and the important thing is to get the bat on the ball. He sliced one to right, and the game was tied. The Rays’ starter, the brilliant but mercurial Matt Garza, was able to relax a bit, and continued to dominate the Red Sox hitters. When the Rays took the lead on a single by Rocco Baldelli it was bedlam inside the dome, and curtains for the Red Sox. Willie Aybar would add a seventh-inning homer, and the Red Sox would load the bases in the eighth inning, but once Tampa regained the lead they looked like a team poised to make it to baseball’s ultimate stage. The canards about postseason experience die hard, but last night, in Tampa, the Rays did their best to kill off any old storylines. The Red Sox had come back from 3 games down to the Yankees and two games down to the Indians in their previous playoff runs; this year, the clock struck midnight on them, but Tampa’s Cinderella story continues.

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The Rays will meet the Philadelphia Phillies, who breezed through the National League playoffs after winning the NL East’s war of attrition in familiar, ugly style. For the second straight season, the New York Mets blew a substantial division lead only to find themselves even with Philadelphia on the season’s final Friday; trailing by one game on Saturday; and even again on Sunday thanks to a brilliant pitching performance. Last year it was John Maine; this year it was the Minnesota and Venezuela important Johan Santana, who scrawled on the Mets’ lineup card “Let’s play like men today” and promptly threw a complete game, 11-strikeout shutout. Unfortunately, he was merely a spectator on the season’s final day, when the Mets were eliminated from playoff competition and the Brewers snuck past them to earn a wild card berth. As Queens sank into its annual winter depression, the Phillies were determined not to be swept out of the playoffs in the minimum number of games possible, as they were by last year’s supernova Rockies, but they were playing a Brewers club that had waited 26 years between playoff appearances and had the best pitcher on the planet scheduled to start game two in CC Sabathia. Sabathia, acquired from Cleveland earlier in the season and almost certain to land in the Bronx in 2009, spent his three months on Milwaukee racking up an 11-2 record with a 1.65 ERA and almost single-handedly restored dignity to the Milwaukee baseball franchise.

Sabathia couldn’t start in game one, though, and that job for Philadelphia fell to 24-year-old Cole Hamels, like Sabathia a tall, left-handed pitcher with occasionally dominating tendencies. Where Sabathia is hefty and unkempt in his two-sizes-too-big uniform, Hamels looks like the cardboard cutout of a pitcher. His cap is pulled tight over his had, brim unbent in the slightest, and when he delivers the ball it’s almost as if he’s reaching over to place it in Carlos Ruiz’s glove. Sabathia, on the other hand, rocks and fires, putting his obvious body mass to work and finishing each pitch with a theatrical flourish of his left arm above is head. Hamels’ delivery is all business: smoother, more consistent, ending downward in a fielding position. It was also more effective in this series. He pitched a masterpiece in game one and watched as Sabathia gave up a second-inning grand slam to the Hawaiian Shane Victorino in game two. This is the second straight year Sabathia has been roughed up in the playoffs after a brilliant regular season, possibly the result of the large number of innings he threw just getting there (His NLDS start was his fourth consecutive appearance on three days’ rest). Note to Hank: caveat emptor.

Against the Dodgers, the Phillies were faced with roughly the same quandary the Anaheim Angels were faced with in the 2002 World Series: How do you stop, with apologies to Albert Pujols (then and now), the game’s reigning best hitter at the peak of his abilities? The answer is to stop everybody else. Manny, long accused of making a mockery of the game, continued to do so with his bat, going an incomprehensible 8 for 15 with two home runs and seven walks over the course of the series, only to see his team fall, four games to one. His 28 postseason home runs are most all time, and his 74 postseason RBI are second to Bernie Williams, but it is those records — and the thought of his next $100 million contract — that will have to carry Ramirez through the long winter. Like his old friends in Boston, he couldn’t make it to the very end. In fact, it was Derek Lowe, Boston’s winning pitcher in each of 2004’s series-clinching victories, that took losses in games one and four for L.A., a team with a distinctly East Coast feel featuring Joe Torre behind the bench and Nomar Garciaparra sitting atop it. Even the Dodgers’ owner hails from Boston, but there will be no clam chowder nor wheatgrass in this year’s World Series. This one’s for all the cheesesteaks.

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If there is one postseason story that should not be buried by Longoria’s superlative skills or BJ Upton’s mammoth playoff home run outburst (seven at latest count, one off the playoff record), it is that of Baldelli. Baldelli joined Tampa Bay in 2003 and put up good numbers through several losing seasons before struggling through something bigger: he was losing energy. After several trips to the disabled list and consultations with doctors, it was discovered that he has a severe metabolic condition that restricts his ability to engage in athletic activities for long periods of time. He’s still a good player, but a part-time one. For someone who grew up in Rhode Island (as a Red Sox fan) and was compared to Joe DiMaggio in his early days for his all-around abilities, it looked as if Baldelli’s career would be spent, for its valor, in the service of avoiding futility. Baldelli started only two games of the series, including the last one, but his go-ahead single in the sixth inning was the game’s decisive blow. At merely 27 years old, he is the heart of this both improbably and all-too-predictably good Rays team. Philadelphia’s center is probably their incredibly 26-year-old second baseman, Chase Utley, but their most recognizable player is their slugging first baseman Ryan Howard. Howard led the league in home runs for two out of the last three years, but his efficiency in producing them has dropped dramatically in that time. He strikes out in the most prodigious numbers in major league history, leading many observers to curse his approach, but there’s something magnetic about the man that is old-school baseball at its finest and delightfully simple to understand — he hits the ball a long way. Homerless through the NLCS, it would be vintage Howard to turn on the faucet when it’s needed the most (He won the 2006 NL MVP on the basis of a sizzling September, and may repeat the feat this year). The question is whether any of it will be enough to cool off the Rays. There may not be enough juice in Howard’s bat and Hamels’ arm to extinguish the thrilling young team by the bay.

D'evils!

A strange thing happened on my television last night. The Sox were swept by the Rays, who scored six runs in the seventh inning off a combination of an ineffective Manny Delcarmen, Craig Hansen, David Aardsma and Javier Lopez.

The strange thing was how shook the pitchers looked in the seventh for a team coming off a World Series title. Craig Hansen looked like a deer in the headlights, if the deer was bout 6’5”, weighed 250 lbs. and couldn’t find the strike zone with a map of home plate.

The Sox wasted a cycle-plus effort from The Little Pony, who finished with two doubles, a triple and a homer. During the game ESPN showed that there have, surprisingly, been a similar number of cycles and no-hitters in the history of baseball. If it seems counterintuitive, that’s because it is: if you took the number of games like Dusty’s, which is to say, those who hit for at least a single, double, triple and homer in a game, the numbers wouldn’t be close.

As I was discussing this with my roommate over some beef with string beans — which is to say, a large carton of string beans with whatever “beef” Dragon Gate was using last evening — the Red Sox started to come back off Tampa Bay closer-replacement-extraordinaire, Dan Wheeler. Soon enough it was 7-6 and Jason Varitek was up with Mike Lowell on first with one out

For those of you in “the know” — LIKE ME (and everyone else watching ESPN) — Jason Varitek is in a terrible, terrible slump. He has problems hitting the baseball, which is a problem for someone in his profession. Anyhow, despite this, Terry Francona put on the hit and run with Varitek at the plate, and JayVay responded by actually lining a shot down the right field line, just foul. On the next pitch, the hit and run was back on, and this time, Varitek responded the way everyone thought he would — he whiffed on the pitch completely, and Lowell was thrown out by about ten kajillion steps. That was strike two, and it was summarily followed by strike three.

I actually like the hit and run call in that situation, or at least I’m able to defend it on these grounds: if Varitek is having trouble hitting the ball, Francona’s trying to force him to by putting on the hit and run. Trick the guy into simply making contact and maybe you’ll trick him into a hitting streak. Okay, maybe it’s not that easy to defend. But I gave it the old college try.

Tonight, Me and Pedro will be at Yankee Stadium. A PayPal account will be set up for you to contribute to my hot dog/beer fund. Euros preferred.

Here come the Rays. Hope you were paying attention

If you’ve watched ESPN over the last month, you can’t probably help but notice that the TAMPA BAY RAYS ARE PLAYING WELL. In case you didn’t get that the first time, THE TAMPA BAY RAYS ARE BASEBALL’S SURPRISE TEAM.

Is it surprising that Tampa Bay is in first place? Absolutely. But it’s not surprising that they are good because, as ESPN will tell you, THEY HAVE LOTS OF GREAT YOUNG PLAYERS.

So how far can BASEBALL’S SURPRISE TEAM go? Can they win the WORLD SERIES? Let’s talk about it.

You would think that after the Cardinals won the World Series with an 83-78 regular season record, and after last year’s Rockies surprise, that ESPN would shy away from predicting the unpredictable. CAN THE RAYS WIN THE WORLD SERIES? Of course they can, fucknuts! Can we just wait and see what happens?

In the meantime, instead of trying to project the future, how about some interesting Rays stories? Like, how the team was slowly and methodically assembled with great draft picks (and two big trades)? Sure, it’s been long chronicled here and here and plenty of other places, but I’ll admit not everyone saw the Rays era coming.

Or how about how, during their decade of futility, they had the best media relations department in the business, just one way to stave off the boredom of working for MLB’s worst franchise?

Sorry to give you story ideas, ESPN — it just seems that you don’t have any except trying to tell the future. FACT OR FICTION: TAMPA BAY WILL WIN IT ALL!

It’s a sad day when the average informed fan can be more informed than pretty much the entire staff of Baseball Tonight. It’s a sad day called “every day in the last five years.”

Sunday dealings

It's been a very active Sunday for the Sox. Bryan Corey has been traded to the Padres. Jed Lowrie has been sent down to Pawtucket. Manny Ramirez is out of tonight's lineup with a sore hamstring. And there's news that the Sox remain in talks with the Rockies regarding Julian Tavarez.

Happy for Bryan Corey, a 34-year-old minor league journeyman who might now be able to enjoy his first extended stay in the big leagues. Sad for Jed Lowrie, a 24-year-old rookie who deserves a spot on the 25-man roster but is better off playing every day in Pawtucket. Devastated that my prediction of Manny hitting numbers 498, 499 and 500 tonight will not come true. Optimistic that the Sox can unload Tavarez, Lugo and $2M for David Nied.

Oh wow, Juan Marichal is on Baseball Tonight. That's pretty sweet. Which is the bigger hit to Marichal's reputation, attending that cock fight in the Dominican or being seen with Kruk and Phillips?

The Rays just took three games from the Angels to improve their record to 21-16. Today they got four innings of one-hit ball from the bullpen and toasted Justin Speier for three runs in the sixth. Cliff Floyd returned to the lineup for the first since his April 9 knee surgery and collected 2 hits and 2 RBI. The Rays have the second-best home record in the American League (13-7), a solid bullpen, a rotation headed by Shields and Kazmir and a lineup that is really enjoyable to watch. I wish they weren't in the AL East so I could get behind them just a bit more.

Devil of a weekend

They're excited in St. Petersburg. And why not? This was the biggest weekend in Rays' history since Rolando Arrojo defected from Cuba. Not only did they sweep the defending champs in grand style, they also assured themselves of an above-.500 record through the first month of the season for the first time in franchise history.

Fitting that Me & Pedro was silent for the better part of three days because so, too, were Boston's bats. Five runs! Three losses, each one maddening in its own way. The missed opportunities of Friday night, staying with Clay just a bit too long on Saturday, wasting Beckett's 13 strikeout effort today. Brutal. Oh and did I mention they face Roy Halladay on Tuesday? Just the medicine they need! Boo.

Five losses in a row and yet the Sox are tied for first place. This glass be half full.

Look at them Rays!

A peek at a trio of projections reveals the Rays could have some sting(!) in '08. That and the Orioles are abysmal. Neither of these findings are at all surprising.

Chone
Yankees 92
Red Sox 92
Rays 89
Blue Jays 83
Orioloes 65

PECOTA
Yankees 97
Red Sox 91
Rays 89
Blue Jays 79
Orioloes 66

Cairo
Red Sox 97
Yankees 96
Blue Jays 87
Rays 78
Orioles 69

Why does Miguel Cairo hate the Rays?

Here's a good look at the Rays' roster from the St. Petersburg Times.

Eye on division rivals

We begin with the Rays, those freshly minted media darlings. Frankly, I am offended by appraisals of the Rays-Yanks tension that suggest Tampa Bay is only now a real Major League team. Such commentary does a terrible disservice to Rolando Arrojo's unforgettable 14-win season in 1998. The Cuban defector still holds the franchise record! And what of Esteban Yan's club record 266 appearances? Do we strike them from the record books? Fun fact: Esteban Yan is also the Rays' all-time leader in OPS! And who could forget this historic battle? He ganked Wally's fanny pack, yo! In actual baseball news, Rocco Baldelli is out indefinitely with some sort of "metabolic and/or mitochondrial" disorder. No jokes here.

Tough day for the Jays, who lost bullpen stalwart and potential fifth starter Casey Janssen for the season with a torn labrum. No, I imagine the signing of Armando Benitez does not comfort this blow.

Peter Schmuck is getting tired of Daniel Cabrera's act. His column is accompanied rather nicely by Jeff Zrebiec's mesmerizing open to Tuesday's game story, "Orioles starter Daniel Cabrera didn't have control of his arm or his legs today against the St. Louis Cardinals at Roger Dean Stadium." But then, just a day later, we have this. I can't call it. Also, the Orioles are pleased with the early returns on their let's do the opposite of what we did last year approach to building a bullpen. Among those recently cut by the O's, Rays' all-time OPS leader Esteban Yan!

The Yankees, in the rich tradition of A-Rod's infamous slap, continue to make fools of themselves whenever they attempt to play like gritty gamers. Billy Crystal could pull off a better take-out slide than anyone in the Yankees' starting nine. Bill Kristol, too! In other news, Johnny Damon is nursing a bruised foot.

Jesus, the Yankees are little bitches

Dammit, every time there's someone whining like a little bitch in the majors, they are wearing pinstripes. First they get all pissed because a Rays player plays baseball — bowls over the catcher — and next, Shelley Duncan Is A Little Bitch, part of the frat-boy-fuckhead duo (Giambi is the other member, bro), takes out Akinori Iwamura on purpose, because he wants to "match their intensity." As if they meant to hurt anyone, you second-generation baseball freak. Then your pitcher throws at their top prospect and gets chucked from the game. You going to complain about that, Girardi?

This is nothing new, of course. Remember when the Yankees bitched about Ken Huckaby sliding into Derek Jeter on Opening Day? Right, because you're not supposed to play hard then, either. Or the time the Yankees wanted the Rays to forfeit because they were late getting to Yankee Stadium after a fucking hurricane? When the Yankees, a month before, had left Baltimore early because of — you guessed it — a hurricane? Or the time they complained their asses off after the Red Sox decided they wanted to, you know, play baseball on a wet day at Fenway? The horrors. We know how that turned out. Fuckheads.

The shot heard round Hillsborough County

It must be asked, Was the running over of Francisco Cervelli by Elliot Johnson the greatest moment in Tampa Bay Rays history?* Gary Shelton of the St. Petersburg Times seems to think yes:

For the most part, the Rays always have been beneath contempt, beneath notice, beneath even the Orioles. They have never been the kind of club to knock someone down. They were more like the team that other teams occasionally tripped over.

All of which is why it is simply marvelous that the Rays have managed to boil the blood of Joe Girardi, the Yankee manager and a potential candidate for the vacant office of Marquis of Queensbury.

Oh no he didn't! He took it there! Marquis of Queensbury.

*I think clearly it's this game. Gerald Williams charged the mound after getting struck by a Pedro Martinez pitch to lead off the game. Pedro retired the next 24 batters and then... well... who among us has the blueprint for getting John Flaherty out?

Bonds to Rays?

This exciting news was greeted by different people in a number of different ways.

If you’re a casual baseball fan the first reaction is of course laughter.

If you're one of those chumps with a Red Sox blog the first reaction is, "Please, God, make this happen."

If you’re an indignant white man the reaction comes in the form of an exceedingly clever quip like, “Tampa Bay lost the Devil in the off season so it’s only fitting they replace him with Barry Bonds.”

If you’re Ken Rosenthal, you’re not likely to pen a “Clemens playing in ’08 would be bad for baseball” column anytime soon.

But, if you are, like me, a keen baseball mind who is all too aware of subtle shifts in power in the American League East, your first reaction is likely, “Yes, if these Rays get 100 games from Bonds at DH they really could compete for the Wild Card.” Well, maybe not just yet. But look, strong defense all over the diamond, two emerging top-flight starting pitchers in Kazmir and Shields, 19 games against the Baltimore Orioles, the tantalizing Evan Longoria at third, tremendous speed in the outfield with Crawford, Upton, and Baldelli, not to mention Cornelius Clifford Floyd backing up Bonds at DH. Oh well, more to come on the Rays when our house expert chimes in with an all-encompassing season preview in the days to come.

My second reaction was one I’m sure I share with many: “Oh my, this acquisition would really shake things up on the Rays all-time roster. To wit:

Carl Crawford
Wade Boggs
Barry Bonds
Jose Canseco
Fred McGriff
Carlos Peña
Damion Easley
Charles Johnson
Ozzie Guillen

On the mound? Dwight Gooden of course!

Bryan: You forgot Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus, righteous indignation that Bonds has not been yet signed (subs required). We get it Joe: Barry Bonds is still good. Your articles have made their point. Really. We know. No, I'm serious: we get it. Nobody's arguing with you. Can we move on?