The difference between the 2007 bullpen and the 2008 one is clear with the placement of one player. In 2007 Al Reyes was looked upon, and acted like, a relief ace. Yet this year he's been pushed to the front of the expendable line and very well could be on his way out of town. When Reyes signed here on a minor league deal he was still recovering from an arm injury that would eventually cost him most of the 2006 season. Reyes had previously signed with the Rays in 2004 before being released, heading to St. Louis, and putting up back to back strong seasons as a set-up man.

When Al broke with the team in 2007 nobody was quite sure whether he would set-up or close, remember that's back when we thought Brian Stokes might be able to close out games. Yet in the second game of the season, with most of the Rays dressed in ninja-esqe face warmers and sleeves, Reyes entered the game in the 9th with a 7-6 lead to protect.

Josh Phelps would be first to face Reyes, and would face a 3-2 count before being retired on a foul tip strikeout. Hideki Matsui would come up and get ahead 3-1. He would foul off the next two pitches, and on the seventh pitch of the at-bat groundout to second. Finally Jorge Posdada came up.

A ball and a called strike were given to Posada and on the third pitch he would send an arching fly into right field. The camera angle was all but indicating we were heading for a tie, but then something happened. Delmon Young looked up, held his glove in the most awesome of ways, and with a collective sigh from the fan base watched as the ball nestled cozily into the padding.

That's how Al Reyes earned his first save, and that's how Al Reyes did a lot of his work. Not always flashy, or brief, but almost always getting the job done.

Thanks Al, and I have little doubt you will find another spot.

Why have the Rays lost five straight heading into today?

There were several theories in the clubhouse, starting with manager Joe Maddon saying the Rays were mentally fatigued, that they had "been playing really hard, and with a lot of emotion, for a long time," and the All-Star break was coming "at the right time."

Starter James Shields said they were physically tired, "pretty much spent" from playing so many tough teams.

Leftfielder Carl Crawford attributed it to bad timing, saying it's "rare to have a whole offense really struggling at the same time."

All are possible explanations. What say you, Scott Kazmir?

"We've got to worry about ourselves and concentrate on what's going on in front of us," Kaz­mir said before Friday's game. "You see guys coming in right from playing on defense and they're like, 'What's the Boston score? What's the Boston score?' That's not how you're supposed to do it."

Kazmir goes on to basically emphasize the point; that the team's poor efforts have resulted from a sense of complacency about their standing and a lack of focus on the task at hand.

Though what Kazmir says may be true, I'm a bit leery to assign any one factor all of the blame for the Rays' ineptitude over the last several days. In any case, the All-Star break can't get here soon enough. Hopefully we can salvage a split of the series, or at least a split of the next two games.

Elsewhere:

• SS Jason Bartlett might not be ready to return when eligible to come off the DL next Friday. If he is not activated on that date, he should be within a couple days thereafter.
• RHP Al Reyes saw his fastball velocity sit in the high 80s in a rehab outing on Thursday for Vero Beach. He will throw on Sunday and Monday for the V-Rays, and could be activated after that.
  
• RHP Troy Percival will throw off of a mound today for the first time since going on the DL.

RAYS 12, Texas 4 Rangers Ballpark Arlington, TX

Continue reading this post »

This was the worst week of the season for the bullpen and unsurprisingly it was the week in which they were the most taxed. With Gary Glover and Al Reyes both on the DL, the team has been turning towards other pitchers for some support. As you can see, the bullpen threw over 20 innings including three days of 70+ pitches.

The best pitcher in the bullpen this week was by far Kurt Birkins. Birkins didn't allow any runs over six innings and provided help in four separate games. The most impressive thing Birkins has shown is that he is capable of working quick innings and keeping his pitch count down. Through six innings pitched he averaged a little over 13 pitches per inning. One of the biggest improvements he has made thus far from last season has been his ability to not allow line drives. His LD% this season is a amazing 4.3% compared to last season's atrocious 23.1%. While this is still a small sample size, Rays fans must be happy with what they have received from the southpaw up to this point.

If Birkins was the best pitcher this week, then Scott Dohmann must have been the worst. Dohmann allowed five runs in three innings of work, and one would expect he would be the first person kicked out once Glover or Reyes are available.

Troy Percival kept his stat-line clean with his save and one inning of work. However, the Rays have continued to show that they will only be using him in save situations. It will be interesting to see how he is used for the rest of the season, and whether he would be brought in during games when we are losing by one run in the ninth.

One thing to keep a close eye on over the next week or two is the performance of Jason Hammel. Sometimes making the transition from starter to the bullpen can be difficult, but the Rays will most likely remain patient either way since he is out of options.

Brant James of the St. Petersburg Times reports that LHP Scott Kazmir will throw five or six innings and a "maximum" of 85 pitches tonight in his final minor league rehab outing for AAA Durham. He is on track to join the rotation this weekend against the Boston Red Sox, most likely for Sunday's game. James also reports that RHP Al Reyes will make his second and final one inning rehab stint for A+ Vero Beach this evening. His fastball apparently "reached" 85 mph in his last outing on Saturday, but he is still expected to be activated when eligible to come off of the DL on Thursday. More injury news from Bill Chastain of RaysBaseball.com:

Willy Aybar [left hamstring strain] said he expects to start playing in games in a week. ... Cliff Floyd [right knee surgery] is expected to begin playing in some games later this week.

Chastain produced another article, the latest to focus on the Rays' impending rotation crunch, and he does a fairly decent job in summarizing things. Chastain also says that LHP Kurt Birkins, who has not pitched in a week, will be optioned to AAA Durham once Reyes is activated from the DL. Essentially, the team faces two tough choices. First, who exactly will be bumped from the rotation? Second, who will be bumped from the active roster? The answer to both questions could easily be the same person, either RHP Andy Sonnanstine or RHP Matt Garza (unlikely). Otherwise, they will need to not only move someone to the bullpen, but bump someone from the bullpen off of the active roster. Should be an interesting choice for the team. Although it isn't my personal preference, I'm guessing based on the circumstances that Sonnanstine will get demoted to AAA Durham since he still has options and the team won't have to disrupt the bullpen by moving him out.

IF Ben Zobrist is due to get the pins out of his fractured thumb today, and he could begin playing in Extended Spring Training games as soon as this week. That from Marc Lancaster of the Tribune, who also had this to report concerning late inning pitching roles:

When RHP Al Reyes rejoins the Rays on Thursday after finishing a stint on the disabled list with a shoulder impingement, he won't necessarily slide back into the eighth-inning spot he had held before. Maddon indicated Sunday he was inclined to keep RHP Dan Wheeler in the primary setup role, though he has done plenty of mixing and matching over the past week.

Lancaster also reports that RHP Jeff Niemann has not made a start for AAA Durham since being optioned down one week ago. He did throw a bullpen session with no problems, however, and thus should make his next start sometime this week. Lancaster speculates that day will be Thursday.

Elsewhere, Adam Morris of Lone Star Ball goes behind the ESPN paywall to retrieve a few Buster Olney bits from ESPN on the state of the Rangers franchise. Hat tip to Rays Index. Here's the paragraph pertinent to the Rays:

Texas general manager Jon Daniels recently received an extension, but if Ryan ultimately decides he wants somebody else making the baseball choices, others who know Ryan wonder if he'll ask former Houston GM Gerry Hunsicker -- now an advisor with Tampa Bay -- to come on board. Even if that happens, friends say Hunsicker very much likes his role with the Rays.

Over the off-season I professed how I had a distaste for our bullpen, particularly the middle and back parts consisting of Gary Glover and Scott Dohmann. Every Monday I'll look at the usage over the past week, that obviously begins today.

Generally speaking the bullpen did an excellent job this week even with one loss credited to Al Reyes, and only one save to Troy Percival. The unit saw 13.6 innings worth of work, allowing six runs -- four by Reyes and the other two by Miller -- for an ERA of 3.97, quite an improvement over the 6.16 ERA last season, even at such a small sample size.

Beginning at the top, Percival was only called upon once and was efficient in preserving his first Rays save and the 325th of his career. Showing great poise Percival worked through an iffy non-strike call against Bobby Abreu and located his next pitch, striking the veteran out to end the game. Although his role thus far has been near minimal Percival's clubhouse demeanor and role have been unmatched, look for the new bullpen area configuration this week at the request of Percival.

Despite a bloodbath at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles Reyes has been solid in two of his three appearances, including cleaning up a mess left by Miller on Saturday. In the past I was skeptical about giving Reyes even more innings, but thus far it appears Joe Maddon is leaning towards using Miller and Reyes in union for the 8th inning, at least until their performance or address dictates otherwise.

Speaking of Miller he's hardly impressed, yet this is nothing unexpected. Over his career Miller has thrown more than 200 innings during the first half of the season and has an ERA of 5.18, as opposed to his 3.65 ERA in the second half. Another thing to watch during the unfortunately named "Miller Time" will be his pre-pitch tendencies, namely if he continues to go to the bill of his hat prior to each pitch.

We now reach a piece that the Rays have chosen as a core of the relief staff through 2010 at the earliest, yes the newest extension receiver, Dan Wheeler. Not only did Wheeler find himself with the most work this week but he also found himself as the most effective, not allowing a baserunner thus far while striking out two batters. As I've pointed out numerous times it wasn't hard to see that Wheeler was a candidate for performance regression, or in this case progression, based on his peripherals. His contract extension isn't just reasonable, it's a downright steal for an organization that since its inception has been hard-pressed to find consistently successful relievers and keep them in Rays uniforms.

From awful starter to potentially useful reliever, thus is the career path of one James Phillip Howell. As he showed Sunday Howell is able to go multiple innings without ill results, even against the most vaunted of lineups. To his credit, Howell also showed the ability to retire batters of either hand equally well, and even went on a streak of seven straight outs. For one day at least, Howell appears to have reached the point of his career where the talk of potentially becoming useful is turning into results and is certainly someone to watch for as this season ages.

Finally we reach Scott Dohmann and Gary Glover and while neither did anything to grant my ire, yet, I'm encouraged that Glover was used the least of all relief arms. To their credit both have been effective, but I sincerely question if the level of success achieved last year can be replicated by either. I'm skeptical, but hopeful, if the duo can at least be around league average the Rays pen could become amongst the deepest in the league.

Since the bullpen won't consist of these seven all season, or at least it's highly inconceivable that such a rarity would occur, I would also like to highlight some of the relievers at Durham during this space. Grant Balfour, the 8th reliever if you will, cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Durham. Steve Andrade remains on the disabled list to start the season meanwhile Chad Orvella has seemingly yet to recover from his injury, but the good news -- I guess -- is that Kurt Birkins has began throwing again and could join Durham soon. Dale Thayer, Calvin Medlock, Nick DeBarr and Scott Munter have been solid thus far with Ben Hendrickson  being anything but, allowing six runs in two and two-thirds innings of work.

RAYS 6, New York 3 Yankee Stadium Bronx, NY

Continue reading this post »