Bullpen Bright Spot In Loss

I’m starting to feel like my viewership is having no effect whatsoever!

It was especially good to see Balfour pitch so effectively considering he had allowed 9 earned runs in 11.1

I’m not convinced Balfour’s troubles are over. The O’s really hit the ball hard in his first inning of work, but right to BJ.

Pardon me for not thinking the bottom has dropped out.

our bullpen put in some solid innings. However, it was not nice to see Sonny get jacked like it was BP or to see in the 6th 7th and 8th us leave 2 guys on base, including Navi’s double play. Gotta find a way to get those runs home.

Tough way to lose when You put up 5 in the 2nd inning and it doesnt even hold the lead.

God damn it, Sonny.

Balfour’s BABIP was .233 last year. The Rays expected BABIP is about .290. His career BABIP is .306. His 2009 BABP is .337. He is closer now to his career and team expected BABIP than he was last year. Regressing to the mean doesn’t mean you start putting up the mean consistently. It takes lots of small smaple sizes good and bad to get to the mean.

Similarly when people talk about the stock market they often state they expect an 8-9% return. However the market almost never performs at 8-9%. Wild fluctuations from year to year and month to month that end up over long periods of time at about 8-10%.

said Sonnanstine

“I felt good physically. I felt my pitches were good. It just wasn’t my night.”

it’s this type of reaction that we seem to always get from Sonnanstine every time he gets shelled, and i hate it. Shields takes responsibility, he’ll be the first to say “i sucked tonight.” but every time Sonny is horrible (which has been most of the time this year), all we hear is “bad luck” and “not my night.” take responsibility sonny! realize that you sucked and that you are doing something wrong, then fix it!

To last year. I dont have the numbers in front of me, but Pena was just as bad, if not worse, than BJ was at this time last year in a lineup that was not nearly as good as this one. He regressed to the Pena we know and love by the end of the year and I fully expect BJ to do the same. Anyone who didnt see Balfour being half the reliever he was last year was kidding themselves. I still love Grant, but we all knew he wasnt going to do what he did last year so it should come as no surprise.
And as for all of you calling for callups and trades right now- are you out of your fucking minds? Im sorry but it is still MAY. We could be .500 at the all-star break, win 15 out of 20, and everyone would be dandy. I think Kaz accepts that his fastball isnt what it used to be very soon, and turns into a pitcher that gives us 5+ scoreless everynight. That behind The Crane and Big Game James gives us as good of a 1,2,3 as anyone in the majors. Couple that with the bullpen roles becoming more defined, the best defense (far and away) in the majors, and BJ and Batrick turning it around, and I think we have a contender. And as others have said, if youre a real Rays fan, thats all we can ask for.

Im not really sure why I said a couple similarities, as I only said one, but lets be realisitic here people. There is plenty of time here, we have one of the best managers in the game and THE best GM and it will get fixed. Barring injuries, I dont think anyone in this forum thinks this team is worse than 85 wins, even with how we are playing right now. And we all know how thin the line between 85 and 95 wins really is. SO lets not panic.