How Good is the Rays offense, thus far?
Kudos to Lancaster on these juicy tidbits
Exhibit A:
The Rays entered Friday leading the majors in both home runs (15) and stolen bases (11) and were third in baseball with a .285 batting average. The depth of their lineup is a big reason for it. The Rays have found production from the lower end of their batting order, and their most effective hitters have been in the 4-5-6 spots: Ty Wigginton, Delmon Young and Akinori Iwamura.
Need more evidence?
The Rays are the only major-league team to have homered from all nine spots in the batting order, and they're also alone in having home runs from 10 different players. Six different Rays have collected a stolen base so far.
Doing some research, I found another fancy tidbit...
In 8 ABs that BJ Upton has come up to the plate with Runners in Scoring Postion, he's collected 6 hits (.750/.778/1.125)
I, along with tons of others, were a bit worried about Upton being able to hit major league pitching at all after his previous 2 showings during call-ups. However, he's proving to be "better than expected" thus far and very clutch with RISP.
Want more? Here's some interesting details regarding our minor leaguers....
Nevin Ashley, C - .323/.364/.516 so far, but has hit 3 triples already
Desmond Jennings, OF- 6 Walks, 5 Ks, 6 Stolen Bases in 7 Games
Reid Brignac, SS- .333/.400/.533, 4 Walks to 1 Strikeout
Evan Longoria, 3B- .321/.424/.571, 4 Walks to 5 Strikeouts
Wade Townsend, SP- 1-1 Record, 8 IP, 3.38 ERA, 10 Ks-4 Walks, .200 BAA
Jeff Niemann, SP- 0-0 Record, 10 IP, 1.80 ERA, 13 Ks-3 Walks, .189 BAA
Jake McGee, SP- 1-0 Record, 9 IP, 1.00 ERA, 10 Ks-4 Walks, .188 BAA
Wade Davis, SP- 0-0 Record, 11 IP, 2.45 ERA, 5 Ks-3 Walks, .289 BAA
Matt Walker, SP- 0-0 Record, 5 IP, 3.60 ERA, 5 Ks-3 Walks, .176 BAA
D. Woods Fines, SP- 1-0 Record, 10 IP, 0.00 ERA, 11 Ks- 6 Walks, .145 BAA
Mitch Talbot, SP- 1-0 Record, 6 IP, 0.00 ERA, 4 Ks- 2 Walks, .000 BAA
Andy Sonnanstine, SP- 1-1 Record, 12 IP, 4.50 ERA, 15 Ks- 2 Walks, .186 BAA