Rays Round up: It's gonna be a long night edition

Today begins the dreaded "West Coast" trip. For those of us who are glued to the Rays every night, it means late nights and less sleep.  I find myself rooting for 2 1/2 hour pitching duels on these nights.  I'm also less likely to stick around for a blowout either way.  I believe whoever invented the DVR did it for nights like this.  Because before DVR's, we were stuck wading through some of the crap on SportsCenter to see what our team did in the middle of the night.

Here's today's Rays Round-up. As always, my comments are in italics.

Larry Stone from the Seattle Mariners asks What will the Rays do for an encore? Very good read. It gives an excellent perspective of the Rays from the outside looking in.  The Mariners (and many other American League teams) are trying to become "this year's Rays." He also points out how difficult it is for teams, like the Rays, to recapture magic from one season to the next.  

Joe Smith from the Times points out that the Rays bench must play key role if team is to succeed. The Gabes, Zobrist, Aybar and others who may still be in AAA will have to once again step up in key situations. 

An off-day debate popped up on Rays Index over Maddon's aggressive defensive alignments. I'm going to continue with my take that he's getting a little too cute. But, if they start winning, I'll probably forget about defensive shifts.

Rays Party takes a look at 2 former Rays pitchers: Edwin Jackson and Jason Hammel.  I know plenty of Rays fans who think trading Edwin "less" Jackson was a mistake.  I think that they'll change their mind once Matt Joyce gets going.

Rise of the Rays breaks down some of the Rays batters against Mariners pitcher Jarrod Washburn. 11-3 record versus the Rays. Uh oh.

Maybe the Rays could use this guy.  Patrick Schuster of Mitchell High in Trinity became the first high school pitcher in Florida to toss four consecutive no-hitters. He struck out 17 in a 5-0 victory. He's signed to play with the University of Florida, but maybe the Rays will give him a look!?

Morning Round-up: Bullpen edition

Rough way to end the series for Rays fans.  Losing to the Evil Empire two games in a row.  The bullpen looks like crap. The bats cooled off after Monday. And the only team with a worse record in the AL East is the Boston Red Sox.  Couple of interesting notes in the morning round-up especially the connection between Lou Piniella and Rod Blagojevich's connection. Also, some fan photos from yesterday's game.  The theme: Yankee fan at the Trop. 

-Most of the New York writers were busy setting the stage for tonight's big opener for the new Yankee stadium. However, NY Daily News writer John Harper glows about the emergence of Brian Bruney as a set-up man for Mariano Rivera. He went as far to say "the bullpen could be the one area where the Yankees have a significant edge over the Rays." Can't say I disagree with him. Coming into the series, the eighth inning seemed to be a real problem with the Yanks bullpen especially after the blown opportunity against the Royals. But, these two games have shown us that the Yankees bullpen (and starting pitching for that matter) has the ability to shut down the Ray.

-The Yankees say they're happy to finish up their nine game road trip with a win against a good team. The Yankees are good. If Rays fans had any doubts that the Rays were in for an AL East dogfight this year, this series should erase those doubts.  On a positive note, this series is eerily similar to what happened when the Yanks visited the Trop year. The only difference was that was 4 game set and we split.

-The Chicago White Sox actually altered their rotation so Ray-killer John Danks can face a team he loves pitching against. This is why Pat Burrell is on the team. He needs to step up today and earn his check.

-Completely off-topic, but amusing nonetheless, former Rays manager Lou Piniella got advice in 2007 from ousted-Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.  The former governor gave Sweet Lou some line-up changes he'd like to see. The Chicago Tribune has the hand written note.

And finally, Rays Revolutionary contributors Jeff from Auburndale and Bud from Spring Hill were at the Trop yesterday. This is the first in my series of themed fan pics. I asked them to take some pictures of Yankees' fans so we could get a sense of how many invaded Rays territory. They say it looks like there are less Yankee fans than in years past, but there will still a few.

AT THE GAME FAN PICS

Theme: Yankee Fans at the Trop

Photos by Jeff & Bud

As you can see, this was 1 Yankee fan among many Ray fans in the outfield.

What Yankee fan does best. Get tanked in the early afternoon.

I'm not going to make a clever comment about this guy because I don't want him tracking me down and kicking my ass.

This guy wasted no time jumping on the Teixeira bandwagon.  You can get the same shirt in Rangers, Braves, and Angels colors.

Strawberry. Really? Is that the shirt you're wearing?

Morning Round-up: Ex-Rays edition

Many familiar faces in the other dug out for last night's series opening game against the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards.  Two of former Rays pitchers did their part to end the Rays 12-game domination of the O's.  In honor or Mark Hendrickson and Danys Baez... here's the morning round-up.

The Baltimore Sun talks about Hendrickson and the O's big victory last night.  A couple interesting tid bits out of this article. I didn't realize Hendrickson was 7-1 in April.  The other was that Hendrickson told Orioles manager Dave Trembley that he didn't have any more gas after the Carlos Pena single.  

Speaking of Hendrickson, the Sun's Toy Department blog (not sure the meaning behind this name) chronicle's Hendrickson basketball vs baseball decision in the 90's. Interesting read.  Hendrickson is actually doing something that Michael Jordan wished he could've done. Of course, I don't think MJ would trade his basketball success for Hendrickson's journeyman baseball career. Here's more on Jordan posterizing Hendrickson from the Palm Beach Post last year.

Marc Topkin of the Times pointed out all of the Rays miscues in last night's lost.  Rays need to tighten it up tonight.  Jump on Guthrie early and get to the bullpen again.  Restore the balance of power.

Ed "winless" Jackson Update: Change of scenery doesn't mean change of luck

Former Rays number 5 starter Edwin Jackson didn't quite get the result he hoped for in his first outing as a Detroit Tiger.  While his stats were impressive... 1 hit in 7 innings... the end result was similar to what we saw many times in 2007: A big "L".  Chris Collette from 10 Connects posted this Jackson update.

I wish Jackson the best of luck as a Detroit Tiger. But, I'm not going to lie, that guy really annoyed me in 2007 when he took the hill and couldn't get a win. I'm glad he was able to contribute to last year's run.