Joe Madden mission hurting the Rays

Go beyond that.

By Aki not playing last night, that cost the Rays the game.

I could’ve played that grounder in the 2nd that Zobrist let through.

Madden is maddening with his too hands on brand of lineup manipulation.

Let the damn guys play! It’s only May!

Even if I did, I wouldn’t have gone for that for two reasons.

Holliday has too much to prove outside of Coors.

They wouldn’t been able to afford him through free agency, which I believe is next year.

Some of Maddon’s moves have been puzzling as of late. Sitting Pena in a big divisional game with an off day coming makes no sense. I don’t care what his stats are against Beckett. He can sit Pena, but he can’t move Upton lower in the order?

I know he needed to get innings out of Sonny last night to save the pen, but he should have had someone ready to put into the game if Sonny gave up a hit in the 3rd. Sonny clearly didn’t have location working for him last night, evidenced by the way he was getting shelled. Jones should have had his 2nd hr off of Sonny two pitches sooner, with the golf ball Sonny put belt-high down the plate. And yet, Niemann gets pulled after 4 2/3 innings even though he had not given up any runs. Yes he was flirting with disaster, but it seemed as if Maddon pulled the trigger a bit soon. At the very least, it doesn’t make sense that he can pull Niemann early but wait until the last possible moment to pull Sonny.

Regardless, Maddon is not the reason why we are under .500. There are plenty of reasons for that.

How is the failure of BJ Upton contributing to the failure of the Rays? Has Evan Longoria not had the opportunity to knock in runs because BJ Upton is too busy getting out? Has Carlos Pena struggled? None of that has happened.

Meanwhile, we have a back end of out batting order protected by guys who can get on base too. Throughout the entire lineup, the points where failure has been expected are with Upton and Navarro. Surrounding those guys, however, has been an incredibly potent lineup. Would you suggest that Joe Maddon put them on an island?

Tell me, is it a good thing or a bad thing to have CC on with nobody in front of him? Tell me, how good is Bartlett at leading off? Tell me, how much does CC like to lead off?

If there is one thing that I cannot stand it is that baseball fans with a rudimentary knowledge of the game, second guess someone who is paid 10x their salary to manage a major league baseball team. Maddon recognizes that within a lineup, there is an inherent value of trust. Maddon recognizes that in baseball, there is an ebb and flow of statistical achievement. CC is getting on once and out twice in cycles of HIT, OUT, OUT. In a larger context, BJ will not continue to get on once in 6 AB’s. That number will increase. In the meantime, when he is getting on base, about 3/10 times, he is giving the guys behind him a steady diet of fastballs.

Is that a problem too?