Evan Longoria Grand Slams Rays To 6-2 Victory Over Red Sox

by Tommy Rancel on May 2, 2009 12:45 AM EDT

For the second straight night the Rays offense was sparked thanks to a bases loaded hit off the bat of Evan Longoria. After a bases clearing double off Josh Beckett on Thursday, Longoria came up in a similar situation in Friday's game. With bases loaded, two-out and the Rays trailing 2-1, he cleared the bases once again, but did one better; he cleared himself as well. "The Keeper" as I will now call him, took advantage of a 92 mph Justin Masterson sinker that did not sink and deposited into the left field seats for his second career grand slam. Carlos Pena would follow up with his major league leading 10^th home run. It was the second time this season that Longo and Los have gone back-to-back.

On the season Longoria is hitting .368 with seven home runs and a team leading 1.158 OPS and 28 RBI. After tonight, he has an OPS of 1.181 against right handers and a 1.030 at the Trop. We all knew Longo was a special player, but I don't think even I expected him to hit 34 home runs and put up a .920 OPS in his first 535 at bats.

Longoria is carrying a BABIP of over .400 which unsustainable over the course of the season. This means at some point his batting average should drop, but the power is real. He is maintaining his fly ball percentage from last season( ~41%), and more importantly his home runs per fly ball rate is within five percent of last years rate. If healthy, he should hit 30+ home runs and hit them fairly easily.

Beside the grand slam, he did draw a walk which was another positive. Longo has just nine walks in 97 plate appearances for a walk rate of around 9%. If he could get that to a Carlos Pena like 16% then the league will have an even bigger problem that it does now. As it is, he has blown past the 1 WAR level and is quickly approaching two wins above replacement level in early May. In fact, he leads the majors in WAR lending credence to those MVP...MVP...MVP during Longoria's at-bats at the Trop. For a player making just $550k in 2009, he has already been worth $8.1 million dollars. That number will only go up this year, and just make Andrew Friedman's unorthodox extension look more genius.

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Comments

He's a Keeper... I tend to agree

All things LONGORIA!

by RalphieTheRay on May 2, 2009 12:55 AM EDT reply actions

seriously... we've shown in flashes how dangereous

we can be. Our 1-5 can compare to anyone…. to add to that our 8-9 can be dangerous and set everything up. We are one BJ hot streak away from getting right back in contention. We were far from able to keep it consistent in April, but I hope May is a new start. We are seriously due for a long winning streak right about now..

All things LONGORIA!

by RalphieTheRay on May 2, 2009 1:11 AM EDT up reply actions

haven't finished reading yet, but i wonder about the idea of switching longo and pena in the lineup.

would longo be even better in the cleanup spot?

by yeseggs on May 2, 2009 12:57 AM EDT reply actions

Longo is the best overall hitter on the team

Best hitter goes in the #3 spot. Pena is perfect for the cleanup spot. Mediocre average, good discipline, lots of HRs.

Hello.

by killa3312 on May 2, 2009 1:27 AM EDT up reply actions

agreed.. I see no faults in the lineup

Longo 3, Pena 4, PTB 5 is good.

All things LONGORIA!

by RalphieTheRay on May 2, 2009 1:48 AM EDT up reply actions

Also it makes top of line up

R/L/R/L/R/

by JMONEYistheman on May 2, 2009 1:41 PM EDT up reply actions

Question about Sonnanstine

I thought Sonnanstine pitched badly even if he did wiggle out of trouble. This is the second time in his 5 starts he walked 4 men in fewer than 6 innings. So here is the question. Is there any thought that in his zeal to develop the changeup he messed up his mechanics? After all, he is not like the minor league pitchers who cannot translate their excellent control to the majors. In his 22 starts as a rookie he walked 1.8/9 and last year lowered that to 1.7/9.

Perhaps this is just a slump, but in his previous 2 years his worst control games were two 3 BB games in 2007, each 6 innings long and one 3 BB game of 5.2 innings last year. I am not overreacting to 5 starts in that I am not asserting that control has deserted him; I am simply wondering whether his early season struggles might be related to the effort to develop the change up.

by bobr on May 2, 2009 7:53 AM EDT reply actions

I said this in the other post, but the walks are becoming a concern

Sonny is a 5 or 6 K/9 pitcher so he needs to keep the walks at or under 2 per nine, however he’s at 4.26 this season. He has improved on giving up the long ball( 1 in 25 IP), but now has 12 walks when he had just 26 in 07 and 37 in 08. He is on pace to walk 81 batters.

I doubt it’s the change up as he’s barely throwing it. For all the spring training hype about the change up, Sonny is throwing it just 3.3% of the time which is even less than he did in 2008. The major change in pitch selection has been the cutter. Sonny has almost scrapped the four seam fast ball in favor of the cutter. Maybe he doesn’t have the same control of the cutter as he did the fastball.

www.draysbay.com

by Tommy Rancel on May 2, 2009 9:08 AM EDT up reply actions

Don't forget to use the word "hittable"

In Play, Out(s)

by Top Gun Numba 1 on May 2, 2009 9:57 AM EDT up reply actions

this prob sounds dumb, but, maybe he wants to walk more hitters so that the hitters won't know every pitch will be a strike.

by walkoffwalk on May 2, 2009 10:47 AM EDT up reply actions

You're right

Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it's business or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don't love what you're doing and you can't give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short. You'll be an old man before you know it.

-Al Lopez

by Sandy Kazmir on May 2, 2009 11:31 AM EDT up reply actions