Not that I'm saying the Rays don't deserve credit for the game, they've made crappy pitchers look good plenty of times. I would have liked to have seen a better offensive performance though considering the circumstances; no walks off Brown and only two extra-base hits.
I like this version of Toby Hall. Can he stay a while?
The lineup was idiotic again but I'm beating a dead horse talking about that. I just can't understand how the radio geniuses can fail to see that Lou is playing crappy players with basically no chance of being average at the expense of players that are not only better but also have potential upside.
Speaking of radio geniuses, I can't believe I forgot to mention the most asinine thing Duemig said today (at least that I heard, I couldn't tolerate much of his show). He claimed that the team was basically mailing it in and most of the players, especially the veterans were "obviously not even trying hard and had given up on the season already." What a freakin' load of crap. He specifically mentioned Sanchez, Gonzalez, and Lugo in that. Excuse me? Lugo is playing hard as always, Gonzalez has made a couple painful errors but he's obviously still trying. Sanchez looks bad but that's because he always looks bad, not because he's not trying. The only person in the organization that has even HINTED that the situation is hopeless is none other than Lou Piniella. Shut up Duemig, you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Go cry in the Stanley Cup and wait for football to start.
Waechter...eh. On the one hand he gave up two more home runs so that problem isn't solved and he only struck out four in seven innings along with two walks. On the other hand he had an even G/F ratio tonight (10/10) and went seven innings, didn't get pounded, and was never in a serious jam. It wasn't great but following Kazmir's dominance last night it's a good start to getting the starting pitching back on track. I'd like to see better from him but he gets a thumbs up for tonight anyway.
Cantu has now had three days off in the last week? Brilliant!
Free Jonny Gomes! Again!