Daily Archives: July 7, 2006

Last year, the Devil Rays hit the All-Star break at 28-61 (.315), then went 39-34 (.534) in the second half thanks in large part to the mid-season promotion of Jonny Gomes and a fantastic second half from Scott Kazmir. This year, the Rays will reach the break with a record at least ten games better than a year ago and are once again set up for a strong second half.

The Yankees last faced the Devil Rays in early May when nearly half of the D-Rays starting line-up was on the DL. The day after the Rays left New York, they activated shortstop Julio Lugo and third baseman Aubrey Huff. Huff struggled through May, but turned it on in June, hitting .359/.400/.543, bringing to mind the extra 100 points of OPS he added after the break last year, aiding the Ray’s strong second half showing. Lugo has followed a similar course this year (.349/.439/.604 in June after a dreadful May), though he was actually less productive in the second half last year.

A month later, the Rays added to Huff and Lugo by activating second baseman Jorge Cantu and center fielder Rocco Baldelli. Bringing Cantu back into the fold has allowed the Rays to finally bench Travis Lee (.201/.286/.296 this year) by moving Ty Wigginton, who previously started at third for Huff before moving to second for Cantu, to first base. Baldelli, meanwhile, has come back from a year and a half on the DL due to an ACL tear and Tommy John surgery and lit into American League pitching, hitting .330/.387/.567 (though his center field defense has been atrocious, if error-free).

Of course, none of those four players could be expected to keep up that level of production, and there’s a strong chance that Huff and Lugo, both of whom are in their walk years, could be traded. But a large part of the Rays’ improvement has simply been benching or other wise disposing of the players those four have replaced: Lee, Thomas Perez (.172/.200/.250), new Kansas City Royal Joey Gathright (.201/.305/.240), and the since released Sean Burroughs and Nick Green.

What’s more, activating those four aren’t the only improvements the Rays have made over the past two months. They’ve finally ended the Damon Hollins’ experiment in right field, replacing his all-or-nothing approach with the superior all-or-nothing approach of Russell Branyan (both have 10 homers, Hollins in 208 at-bats, Branyan in 114). More significantly, they finally cut bait on Toby Hall (.262/.298/.382 career and the Rays’ starting catcher since 2002), swapping him to the Dodgers for former Yankee prospect Dioner Navarro (5 for 14 with a double and three walks since switching team and .283/.367/.382 overall in his young major league career). In addition to already being a better hitter than Hall, Navarro is also eight and a half years younger.

The Navarro deal also saw the Rays swap out Mark Hendrickson (sweet mercy) for ex-Met Jae Weong Seo, which gives the Rays a starting pitcher with a higher ceiling who is also three years younger. The Seo-Hendrickson exchange is one of three changes the Rays have made to their rotation since we’ve last seen them, having also farmed out 25-year-old failed prospects Doug Waechter and Seth McClung for 24-year-old Jamie Shields and 28-year-old Tim Corcoran. The significance here isn’t the additions of Shields and Corcoran (no relation) so much as, once again, the removal of the players they’ve replaced, a pair of pitchers who couldn’t get their ERAs below 6.60.

Tonight the Rays send Seo to the mound to face Jaret Wright. Wright was lit up by the Mets in his last start, getting the hook after just 1 2/3 innings, just the second time all season he failed to make it through five full innings, the other being his first start all the way back on April 15. Seo, who had been demoted to the bullpen with the Dodgers, has made two appearances since coming over from L.A., the first a pair of scoreless relief innings in Florida, the second a Jaret-Wright-like five-inning outing against the Nationals.

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Bob Klapisch takes a look at Mike Pelfry and Phillip Hughes, two young pitchers with seemingly promising futures, today in the Bergan Record. Considering how Met and Yankee prospects tend to be over-hyped, the $64,000 question is: Will they be fo’ real or fugazi? The Metropolitans get their first taste of Pelfry this weekend while Yankee fans will have to wait until 2007 until they see Hughes in the BX.

Randy Johnson was in fine form last night. For the first two innings of the game, the sun was still shinning brightly over the third base side of the ballpark. It cast beautiful, long shadows for the pitchers as well as anyone on the right side of the infield. Johnson’s shadow looked like a blade of grass and it carried almost half-way to first base. It was an odd but memorable sight. The same can be said for Johnson, period. The Big Unit simply cruised through the first six innings–it was vintage stuff–before hitting the wall in the seventh. He continued to falter in the eighth but by then the Yanks had a big lead. Final score: Bombers 10, Indians 4. After the game, Johnson was candid with reporters. According to Tyler Kepner in the New York Times:

“Going deep in the game — I’m not going to be able to do that anymore,” Johnson said. “I kept them at bay for a while, and then all of a sudden my slider wasn’t as effective, and neither was my location. It’s just part of getting old. We all know that I’m really old.”

…”You look at Maddux and you look at Clemens, those guys and myself, we’re all in our early 40’s,” Johnson said. “We’re not going to go seven, eight, nine innings anymore. There’s going to be games where we do, and tonight I was trying to pick up the bullpen. But you can only do the smoke-and-mirrors thing so long out there against good-hitting teams.”

And more from Sam Borden in The Daily News:

“It went from (three) hits to seven and one run to four – who would be happy with that?” he said. “That’s just me. I could be content with that and say I pitched great, but the one thing I haven’t lost is my competitiveness.”

Again, Indians kicked the ball around more than somewhat. Miguel Cairo and Derek Jeter each had three hits; Jason Giambi hit a two-run dinger, and newcomer Aaron “Ralph Malph” Guiel–who was as earnest and genuine as any overachiever you’ve ever on the YES pre-game show–scored three runs.

Yanks head down to Tampa to play the surging D-Rays. Shawn Chacon will not get the start on Sunday–Kris Wilson will instead. The Post has a rumor that the Yanks are considering sending Chacon to Seattle in exchange for starting pitcher Joel Pineiro.

Left on the Cutting Room Floor

Johnny Damon used to puff the Budda Bless and Alex Rodriguez performs a mitzvah.