The Rays Tank: Wake Up Bats!

The Rays barely avoided a no-hitter at the hands of Clay Buchholz and the Boston Red Sox Sunday afternoon at Fenway. Buchholz threw eight shutout innings giving up only two hits, walking four and striking out 11 batters on the day. The first hit for the Rays did not come until the top of the eighth inning, when Kelly Johnson singled on a broken-bat blooper to right field.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ElbYysooB9U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Johnson tells Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times that "I was thinking he (Buchholz) had no-hit stuff, even after my first AB."

Erik talked about Alex Cobb’s decent outing in the recap of yesterday’s game here.

It is time for the offense to wake up. I’m already tired of hearing "It’s just one game." No, actually it’s seven games now, which has put the Rays in last place in the AL East. The Rays have only two batters, Evan Longoria and Ben Zobrist, who are hitting over .300. I am not at all saying to hit the panic button or call it quits on this season, I just want to see some runs put on the board!

Currently, the Rays have scored 33 runs on the season, which ranks last amongst AL teams, leaving 64 men on base throughout the first eleven games. In the seven losses on the season, the Rays are 5-for-46 with runners in scoring position. Five.

The Rays defense has looked solid, minus a few mishaps here and there which has resulted in four errors over these first eleven games of the season. That's not the problem. The rest of the lineup needs to wake up, get some hits, and Get The Man IN!

The Rays finish up the series in Boston this morning as Jeremy Hellickson takes the mounds against Ryan Dempster at 11:05 AM on Patriot's Day.

Headlines Around MLB:

Roy Halladay earned his 200^th career win yesterday as the Phillies defeated the Miami Marlins 2-1.

Marlins outfielder Austin Kearns was kept overnight at a hospital after complaining of an elevated heart rate before yesterday’s game.

Atlanta extended their win streak to nine as Justin Upton homered once again, his seventh of the season, in the Braves 9-0 victory over the Nationals.

After experiencing back spasms, Andy Pettitte’s next start was pushed back to Friday by the Yankees.

Speaking of the Yankees, Hiroki Kuroda shutout Baltimore 3-0 last night. It was Kuroda's fifth shutout of his career.

Links:

-Carlos Quentin began serving his eight-game suspension yesterday after dropping his appeal. Three of the eight games he will miss are against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

-Meanwhile, Twins pitcher Glen Perkins jokingly tweeted that he would "crane kick" a batter if they ever charged him on the mound.

-‘42’ raked in $27.2 million at the box office this weekend, making it the most successful opening weekend ever for a baseball movie. Previously, Benchwarmers held the record with a $19.6 million opening weekend.

-Today, Jackie Robinson day will be celebrated around the league. All teams will once again wear the number 42 on their jerseys. Here’s a full list of events going on around MLB in Robinson’s honor.

-Ben Lindbergh of Baseball Prospectus took a look at catcher framing and included Jose Molina’s best three frames of the week.