5/18 Post-Game: Oakland Athletics @ Tampa Bay Rays

And this was a good night. The bullpen rest we needed.

Also DFA Crawford

That doesn’t mean that I think the Rays are back to what they were last year. The starting pitching still bothers me. Niemann is the hero of the day in my eyes, giving the bullpen a much needed rest, but 24 straight fastballs to end it is not encouraging to me. Combine that with whatever the hell is wrong with Kazmir and sudden ineffectiveness of Sonny, and it doesn’t bode well for long-term success. One of these guys has to get going for real, not like Niemann did tonight against Oakland’s lifeless sticks, or the Rays are going to burn the entire bullpen out by July.

And about that bullpen; recent signs have been encouraging collectively, but they can’t keep all these arms. If the Rays are going to keep Izzy, he should be a functional replacement for Percival, but that’s not going to happen. I’d be OK if he replaces Wheeler instead of Percy, but that won’t happen either. I’m more afraid he’s going to replace Cormier and the team isn’t going to clearly remedy the starting pitching and thinking they can get by without a long reliever.

On the plus side, the first 20 games of the season, the Rays plated 91 runs. In the 2nd 20 games, they’ve plated 130. At a normalized pace, they’ll get around 880 runs this year. That’s solid. Willy Aybar is nice and hot right now; I like it when he gets long streaks in the lineup.

My question: Assume for a moment that Scott Kazmir, Andy Sonnanstine and Jeff Niemann continue to underperform. At the all-star break, the Rays are 4-7 games out of the wild-card spot. What do you do about the starting pitching, and how is it going to get the team into the playoffs? You can trade any one of those players along with Zobrist, Aybar, or Iwamura. Or you can pin your hopes on Price, Davis, or Talbot.