The Rays Tank: Coming Home Edition

Road trips aren't fun. Unless you mean the type you take with your boys during your sophomore year of college. Those are fun. Traveling for work, though? Who enjoys that? The Rays are finally home after a grueling 10 game trip that saw them play afternoon games in Detroit and take in first pitch before lunch time in Boston. When you're used to beginning work at 7pm, that sucks.

The road trip was tough, but things don't get much easier with the Twins and Angels in town despite each being under .500. Justin Morneau looks to be recovering nicely from his concussions with four home runs though 11 games. Joe Mauer is starting to do Joe Mauer things. Jered Weaver has an 11.50 K/BB ratio in 20 innings. There's still that Pujols guy. A series at the Rangers also looms at the end of the month. Heading into the season a .500 month of April would have been acceptable. Certainly it's not up to the Rays' standards, but considering the competition, and rash of injuries they've faced, it seems like a reasonable goal. They currently sit 7-6. Bring it on, Twins.

• I don't know if everyone saw it last week, but The Onion did a little piece on Joe Maddon and his constant infield shifts. As always, The Onion wins.
• Over at FanGraphs, Dave Cameron takes a look at the odds of Bartolo Colon's 38 straight strikes. Needless to say we likely won't see something like that again for a long, long time.
• One of the funnier posts I've read in a while comes from Jeff Sullivan at BaseballNation. It's worth it if only for the lines about Casey Kotchman.