The Rays Tank: It's Matt Moore-ial Day 2012!

Around the Majors

Yu Darvish made his major league debut yesterday (video), and although he got the win, it wasn't the scintillating performance that we were all expecting. Darvish labored through 5.2 innings, striking out five and walking four, and giving up five runs in the process. Or to put it another way, the Rangers just got Dice-K'd.

The other big stories from last night's games: Chris Sale made his first major league start (video), and Barry Zito threw a complete game shutout in Coor's Field (video). Oh, and both the Yankees and Red Sox got their first wins of the season, beating the Orioles and Blue Jays.

The season has started, but the contract extensions keep on coming in. Last night, it came out that the Rangers have signed Ian Kinsler to a 5 year, $70 million extension -- seems reasonable for a +7 win player last season -- and the Indians have signed Carlos Santana to an extension as well (terms still unknown). I'm still holding out hope that the Rays will announce another extension sometime soon (Matt Joyce, please?), but the odds of that are likely decreasing.

And in other news, R.J. Anderson wrote an article for Baseball Prospectus about 12 role players around the game that you more than likely don't know about. Although I suppose you already know about Vogt...

Rays Talk

Matt Moore starts for the Rays today, and there's a fun profile of him in the Tampa Bay Times this morning. As they note, Moore is normally a slow starter and typically doesn't perform as well in April, but he might get some extra help from the city of Detroit:

Weather forecast for #Rays today, per Detroit Ch. 4: High of 47, feels like in 30s, possible rain + snow showers.

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) April 10, 2012

Cold weather typically suppresses offense, and I've got to imagine hitting one of Moore's mid-90s fastballs will sting like crazy. Happy Matt Moore-ial Day, Tigers!

Also, the Rays now play seven day games in a row? What's up with that?