The Rays Tank: Matt Joyce's payback

Here's a few quick thoughts for your daily tank:

Joyce angered John Lackey on Monday after getting frustrated his would-be second homerun on the night pushed foul. This led Jason Collette to summarize this important lesson:

via theprocessreport

The benches would eventually clear, mostly due to Lackey's antics.

Joe Maddon was free flowing with his words for Lackey after Monday's loss, and hadn't changed his mind on Tuesday, but Joyce was quiet.

Instead of instigating more drama with his words, Joyce told Marc Topkin:

"Sometimes, you've just got to let the bat do the talking.''

Joyce was one of three Rays players to get on base 3 times, joining the night's one-and-two hitters Desmond Jennings (who hit two homeruns of his own, confusing fantasy owners everywhere) and Sean Rodriguez (battling for his spot on the roster).

[Joyce:] "... that's a great feeling, especially to help your team win. I've never really been the type of person to talk a lot of trash and whatnot, so I wanted to come out and play a good game, play the game the right way and win the ball game.''

The Rays and Red Sox meet for Game 3 tonight, with Alfredo Aceves making a spot start for Boston. He'll be facing the always-zen Chris Archer. It's gonna be wildly entertaining.

LINKS:

- Someone defended A-Rod, and it kinda works.

- Gattis hit the rosin off a baseball!

- Fangraphs: A primer on MLB and Biogenisis

- Jeff Moore: "Call up season is upon us." -- After seeing Gerrit Cole strike out his first batter at 99, no kidding. Moore takes the high level look at the league.

- UPDATE: Longo is out in the community today

.@evan3longoria kicking off Reading with the Rays. twitter.com/samober/status…

— Sam Obermyer (@samober) June 12, 2013

Editor's Note: Sorry I didn't get to this sooner. I'm on the west coast this week.