Rays Tank: Back to Winning Ways

Some were calling for a five game losing streak at the close of this series, but the Rays stole a win from the jaws of defeat last night while pissing off Kevin Long with some more well-placed shifts that led to key outs. Heading into that last frame, the Rays had been 0 for 17 with runners in scoring position in the series and 0 for 9 in this game which makes the improbable ninth inning comeback that much more enjoyable. Opposing hitters were just 1 for 21 with the bases loaded with 15 strikeouts over the past two seasons so Upton's sacrifice fly was huge allowing MOM to do what MOM does best.

Other news that you can use:

• Brewers coaches have come up with a new stat: team productive at bats
• John Jaso was a part of history in Seattle last night
• Joe Maddon made six defensive moves at one time over the weekend. Rob Neyer wondered if that had been done before....and it had been.
• I would be remiss if I failed to point out that our old hero Casey Kotchman has two more steals than any other first baseman in baseball and is tied with Ichiro Suzuki on the season with 3 (h/t FreeZo)
• Baseballheatmaps.com --- your new timewaster
• Speaking of timewasters -- I can't be the only person old enough here that remembers this.
• Boston lost to KC last evening and we learned that Josh Beckett went golfing on Thursday before missing his start on Saturday with a sore lat muscle. Clearly, everything was Tito's fault. They're now 12-19 on the season and are 19-38 since September 1st of last season.
• Bill Petti continued his series on maintaining velocity over at FanGraphs
• Last night, Maddon brought Fernando Rodney in down 1-0 in the 8th inning. Charlie Manuel has no idea how that is done and Bill Baer of Crashburn Alley explains.