It's Tuesday, but we finally know who'll be starting on Friday, drumroll please...
Scott Kazmir.
Saturday?
Ed(still no win) Jackson.
Sunday?
Unknown, still.
The rotation is 4/5ths complete in a new order: Shields, Kaz, Jackson, Fossum, n/a, so it appears the Rays could run with this four man rotation thing for a little longer than us non-patient types would like, seeing as we have an off-day on Thursday before beginning a four game series against the Royals.
Rays look to take the series tonight against Jeremy Bonderman and the Tigers. Call them the 'cardiac kids', at least when it comes to closers. B.J. Ryan, Joe Nathan, and Todd Jones have all felt the fury of a late inning comeback, as the Rays moved to 10-6 in one run games, and 13-14 at home overall, needing to go 37-17 the rest of the way to match the 50 wins goal.
Tonight Casey Fossum, who Tiger fans are legitimately afraid of, takes on Jeremy Bonderman. Somewhere Billy Beane throws another chair through a wall. The Rays are averaging about 15 thousand a night, although they've yet to play a series against the Red Sox, and have only face the Yankees three times, so naturally those numbers will rise.
Speaking of those Yankees, the Rays are now tied for fourth, and only two games out of second. In June. Second. Rays. June. My oh my how sweet that sounds. Almost as sweet as having Akinori Iwamura scoring the game winning run, like he seemingly has in every game he's played...okay that's exaggerating but it does provide for some great photo ops:
One more note, the Rays have six players in their usual starting lineup with OBPs over .350, and two over .400, and if you include Norton seven, and three, the others being; Pena, Upton, Dukes, Crawford, Iwamura, and Harris.
Now to the lineups for tonight, courtesy of the great Marc Lancaster:
Tigers
Rodriguez C
Polanco 2B
Sheffield DH
Ordonez RF
Guillen SS
Thames 1B
Infante CF
Monroe LF
Inge 3B
Bonderman P
Rays
Dukes CF
Upton 2B
Crawford LF
Norton DH
Pena 1B
Young RF
Iwamura 3B
Navarro C
Harris SS
Fossum P