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Tampa Bay Sports Blog

Blog dedicated to Tampa Bay area major sports news and opinions.

Entries Tagged ‘Jason Bartlett’

Five moves the Rays should make.

    In the spirit of trying to keep up with the goings on of the hot stove league I’ve decided to look at the possibilities and suggest five moves the Rays should make to improve their team. I will try to be as realistic as I can be while trying to view things from both [...]

Rays season over, sigh.

   Time to wrap up the Rays season. What a season we had here, never saw this coming. I thought, the same as everyone else, the Rays would improve but not to this extent. Let’s wrap it up…

The defense: The most dramatically improved thing on this team was the defense. The arrival of Jason Bartlett [...]

Rays avoid an embarrassing sweep at home.

The Rays ended the madness tonight and got away with a 7-5 win to avoid being swept by the retirement home bandits. They had a big inning in the second in which they scored 5 runs on hits by Gross, Aki and Aybar and things looked back to normal on the mound and in the [...]

Rays drop first to the Yankme’s.

I know, I know, but you should all know by now that since my life is chaotic, my postings become chaotic. I’m trying to slow things down a little now but we’ll see how it goes. Anyway, the ancient relics in pinstripes came to town and took game one of the series 7-2. I heard [...]

Rays grab Bradford, Crawford back in lineup.

   A couple of Rays notes for the day. The snagged reliever Chad Bradford off of waivers from the Orioles and will be sending the infamous “player to be named later”. Bradford is a capable reliever who I can’t stand watching, but is effective. He is one of the few submarine style pitchers left in [...]

Some Rays rambling.

   Listening to Ron and Ian today they did an interview with Joe Maddon which was pretty good. The only thing Maddon said that I don’t agree with is that BJ Upton hustles “all the time” and that he never has mental lapses. Are you kidding me? Does he think we all listen to the [...]

Coco Crisp is a dirty bitch, Aki needs to defend himself!

  If you watched the game last night you saw the confrontation between Manager Joe Maddon and Coco Crisp. Coco tried to steal second in the eighth inning of a 5-1 game and slid late and hard into Akinori Iwamura while being tagged out. It was a blatant cheap shot attempt and Joe Maddon had [...]

The Rays need a real hitter!

   The series in Boston is pretty much going the way I thought it would. I’m not silly enough to think the Rays can go to Boston and sneak out with another series win. I figured they would drop the first two and grab the third behind James Shields. This isn’t being brought up because [...]

Rays are winning in spite of Maddon.

   First thing to say here is that the players on the field are getting it done. All the credit in the world belongs to the guys on the field doing what needs to be done. No doubt about it. I am getting very frustrated with our idiot Manager now though. It seems at the [...]

Rays win again, time to give props.

   The Rays shut out another team tonight behind some nice pitching and defense. The defense is the main reason for the improvement of the pitching staff this year in my opinion and it’s time I gave some guys props for the work they’ve put in.

   Matt Garza is almost as unpredictable as Edwin Jackson [...]

The Rays defense IS better.

   Let me give it to myself before I get shell shocked by Rays Index and the rest of them. Jason Bartlett is better than Brendan Harris. I judged Bartlett too quick and I have to retract my earlier statements. In the first few weeks of the season I was so unimpressed by the play [...]

Rays win again.

   I’ve never been more excited to be a Rays fan. The Rays beat Boston again tonight 2-1 and it was an awesome game. Edwin Jackson pitched well and the bullpen did too. The Rays hung in against the Sox all the way Akinori Iwamura finally came through in the eighth with a two run [...]

Rays in a big one with the Sox.

   What a huge night for the Rays and their fans. Rays Index wrote today about how big this series actually is for the Rays and I’m in complete agreement on this. This series with Boston is a show a prove opportunity for the Rays. This is huge not just for the fans, who finally get [...]

Wow, Sonny dominates!

   I couldn’t wait to write about this one. I’ve been very critical of the Rays so far this season and with good reason. Tonight there is nothing but good to talk about. Andy Sonnanstine threw a picture perfect ballgame and the entire team played well behind him. Everyone looked good on the field and [...]

Pena back in lineup. Bartlett needs some time off.

   The Rays  are looking to bounce back from a bad night where rookie Jeff Niemann got lit up and overall the team just played poorly. Pena is back in the lineup tonight as the DH and that’s a huge boost. After watching Hinske play first base Pena can’t get back on the field soon [...]

Rays injuries pile up, announcement coming.

   The Rays have experienced a multitude of injuries so far yet the newest could hurt badly. In last nights game Carlos Pena left with what is being called ‘hamstring tightness’ and this scares all Rays fans. Pena is off to a good start power-wise and is a great defensive first baseman. If he goes [...]

I’ll take it like a man.

   Well this is one of the fun things about sports. People don’t always see things the same way. It appears I’m ruffling some feathers out there with my defense of Brendan Harris over Jason Bartlett. I’m not going to back off of my stance that I prefer Harris to Bartlett but I’m definitely not [...]

Rays lose a tough one.

   Tonight was really hard to swallow. It had to happen eventually with Jackson, he struggled tonight and that’s no surprise. I’m not saying he hasn’t improved, he definitely has, but there was no way he could have kept up the pace he started on. He’s still walking people a little too much but his [...]

Rays have more problems than we thought.

   Let’s do some catching up on a busy week where my family kept me busy.  I know it’s early in the season but it appears the Rays have more problems than expected. First off it’s quickly looking like swapping Brendan Harris for Jason Bartlett was a huge mistake. Harris was average defensively but made [...]