Rays Celebrate Their 2009 ALL-STARS with T-Shirts!

Today, the Rays announced that they are going to give away 5 different T-Shirts to the first 10,000 fans wearing Rays gear on the upcoming homestand games against the Yankees and the Red Sox. The shirts will be given away on July 27th, July 28th and July 29th when the New York Yankees are in town (HUGE SERIES!!!) and on August 4th and 5th when the Boston Red Sox are in town. They are giving away a shirt for each of the 5 Rays players that went to the 2009 ALl Star Game (Carl Crawford, Ben Zobrist, Carlos Pena, Evan Longoria and Jason Bartlett). My favorite is the shirt featuring "the Catch" by Carl Crawford. Check them out at Raysbaseball.com.

Rays Sweep the Jays - Akinori Iwamura sighting!

The Rays finished an impressive series against the Blue Jays that included 2 walk-offs and a gut wrenching 3-2 win. I have to tip my hat to the Blue Jays for a gutty series even though they leave empty handed (too bad for them).

BUT, the real story is the resiliency of the 2009 Rays team! They gutted out a huge walk-off win in Game 1, battled relentlessly in Game 2 (despite losing 3, 3-run leads) and carried that into game 3 against arguably the best pitcher in the American League in Roy Halladay. Not to mention that the Rays have now beaten Halladay twice this year.

I'm not going to get into a bunch of details about who pitched really well (Shields and Price) and who did not pitch so well (Kazmir), but I do want to give some props to an improved defense (still some issues there, but seems to be improving) as well as a very solid bullpen (despite Grant Balfour's issues in Game 2 - he made up for it today). Overall, I like the way this team keeps battling back after a rough stretch in Texas. I'm not ready to say that I'm having more fun that I did last year at this time, but I am really starting to have a lot of fun again with this team! I also want to give some props to Pena today for finally breaking through with a clutch double to drive in the 2 winning runs today. I've already voted for "Los" for the ASG and I threw a few more votes in today just for that play.

Finally, Aki was spotted on the field today (see pic below) playing catch and moving around with a knee brace on his leg. It is AMAZING to me that he's already out on the field and will be doing some agility drills with the Rays right after the All-Star break. I am a HUGE Aki fan and can't wait for him to rejoin the clun. Talk about depth when he returns!

Scott Kazmir IS key to 2009 (and he's improving)

A recent game preview article on MLB.com stated that Scott Kazmir "could be" key to the Rays this year. I am willing to take this one step further and state that he IS ABSOLUTELY key to the Rays success in 2009.

In looking at the Rays rotation, Garza and Shields are legitimate "stoppers" and should continue to be strong starters for the remainder of the year. Niemann has been a very pleasant surprise, but it's not a sure thing that he will remain as consistent as he's been (hey, he's a rookie). Price has been anything but consistent girating from one strong start to the next lousy one. IF the Rays are to make it to the playoffs this year and have any success in the playoffs, they need three solid, consistent starters with intermitant strong performances from their #4 and #5 guys. This is why Kazmir is so important. In addition to the fact that Kazmir is one of the highest paid players on the Rays roster $6 million in 2009), which hamstrings the club's ability to pay up for additional pitching, Kazmir has shown that he can still be a dominant pitcher in this league. We already know that Sonnanstine is far from a sure bet. After a very good 2008 season, he's regressed to the point where we really can't count on him. Other options in Triple-A are also far from a sure thing, although one never knows (Wade Davis and Carlos Hernandez are both pitching VERY well for the Bulls).

So, if Kazmir can become a consistent 4.00 ERA starter (or better) and can pitch into or through the 6th inning on a consistent basis, I really like the Rays chances of making a run at the AL East title given their prolific (at least up until lately) offense and strong defense (at least it should be strong, on paper - I tend to think that the offense will moderate a little bit in the second half, but the defense should also revert back to the mean thereby offsetting each other in large part). But, without Kazmir at or better than this level, it's going to be a much more difficult road to hoe because we've seen how streaky the offense can be.