Roy Halladay Sweeptstakes

With the Phillies looking like they are officially shifting their focus to SP Cliff Lee from the Cleveland Indians, do the Rays stand a better chance of landing Roy Halladay than they this time last week?
Scott Kazmir’s start last night would certainly help his value on the market.  He pitched a 7 inning outing for the first time in over a year, and looked quite good.  His velocity was aroun 91-94 and his slider and changeup both looked good.   I still say an offer of Kazmir, Wade Davis and Reid Brignac is as good as the Jays [...]

The Toronto Sun is reporting that the Tampa Bay Rays have entered into the sweepstakes for Ace Roy Halladay.
Upon hearing originally that Halladay was available, the Rays and the Phillies seemed to have the best chances (as far as packages were concerned) of landing Halladay.  Reports originally surfaced that they were looking for one active starter who had frontline potential, and a couple top 50 specs.  Does Scott Kazmir, Wade Davis, and Reid Brignac make sense?  To me it makes perfect sense.
After James Shields and Matt Garza I have zero confidence in the starting rotation. David Price is on [...]

In a real depressing turn of events, Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game against the Rays today.
Gabe Kapler should have ended the perfect game in the 8th with a HR, but was robbed by defensive replacement Dewayne Wise.  The catch, considering the magnitute of the moment, has to rank up there as one of the better catches in recent memory.
Buerhle obviously went all 9 innings, striking out 6 guys on 116 pitches, 76 of which were strikes.
The catch….

This post was written by a regular contributor on the Pewter Plank, our draft guru, John Crimmins.
In the past 3 years we as Rays fans have grown to love our bespectacled skipper nearly as much as his own players have. Joe Maddon has an analytical mind and is not afraid to go against the grain when it comes to game strategy, he puts his defenders in the right place much more often than not and uses his bullpen extremely well. For all the good things Joe does, and he does plenty, there is one thing about him that has always [...]

With one feel for the wall and jump, a defensive wizardry in left that Rays fans have become accustomed to, Carl Crawford might have finally made himself visible to the rest of baseball.  Even though we went to the World Series last year, and even though if you watch any games, I don’t know how you could honestly have voted for any other LF to win the Gold Glove, Carl Crawford has yet to win a Gold Glove.
It’s something that I know the Rays take personally, their lack of Gold Gloves.  They were upset last year when they had the [...]

MVP – Ben Zobrist
I even had a little issue typing that out myself,  and I know a lot of people will probably laugh when they see that, but when comparing the stats of all the hitters on the Rays, it is clear to me that Zobrist is the MVP of this years team.
AVG – .288, HR – 17, RBI – 50, OBP – .407, SLG – .602, OPS – 1.009
Slugging – 2nd in the AL
OBP – 3rd in the AL
OPS – 2nd in the AL
As I have mentioned before, there were some stats last year that indicated that maybe Zobrist [...]

After making up little ground in the standings with our 15 out of 20 game stretch, the Rays followed that up with an abysmal showing and a sweep by the Texas Rangers.

The Rays scored a total of 7 runs in the 3 game series.  This will not suffice, vs any team, let alone a team that can mash on the ball like the Rangers do.  We were outscored in the series 20-7.
David Price had his worst outing of the year in Game 2 of the series.  1.1 IP, 6 ER, 5BB.  Once again, a stat line that will not cut [...]

After the completion of a 7 game win streak yesterday with a loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, the Rays made up very little ground in the standings, about .5 games.  We have gone 15 and 5 in our last 20, for a 75% winning percentage, but the Yankees and the Sox have been playing just as well.  Our 7 game streak came to an end yesterday, and subsequently the Yanks won their 7th in a row.
The real travesty of the whole thing is that the top 4 teams in our division (Boston, NY, Rays, Toronto) all have a better [...]