The Rays Tank: Alex Cobb Suffers Only Mild Concussion After Line Drive

It was a terrifying moment in Saturday's game when Alex Cobb was hit by an Eric Hosmer line drive, sending him sprawling onto the ground and eventually off the field in the stretcher. Luckily, though, Cobb is doing about as well as the Rays could have hoped. Rays officials said that Cobb only suffered a mild concussion, with all tests coming back normal and his only symptoms being a slight headache. He never lost consciousness and escaped with only a cut on his right ear. Cobb let out an encouraging tweet late Saturday night.

Can't thank everyone enough for the prayers. Was the only way for me to make it out of there ok. Look forward to getting back out there.

— Alex Cobb (@Acobb53) June 16, 2013

Marc Topkin talked more about the situation to Mark Kestecher of ESPN Radio and added that Cobb actually tried to stand up on the mound before the trainers told him to stay down, obviously a good sign, but that in all likelihood Cobb will require a DL stint. In any event, Cobb and the Rays have to feel fortunate that things are looking up so much in light of the circumstances, and hopefully Cobb will be back starting games before long.

What bothered Jerry Crasnick of ESPN was that we certainly have the capacity to create something that would protect pitchers yet it isn't happening right now. Even if a padded cap would only protect against batted balls directly to the head and not other parts of the body, if it would make pitchers any safer and would not require too much of an adjustment for pitchers (as would be the case with a lightweight material) there really isn't any excuse for baseball to put such a product into use with alacrity.

Here are your links for today:

-Wil Myers homered again as part of a 3-hit day.

-In the Low-A Bowling Green game, Jeff Ames tossed 5 shutout innings and Andrew Toles stole two bases. Toles now has 40 steals, 5th in all of the minor leagues (right behind Billy Hamilton) and nearly double the next-closest Rays prospect (Tommy Coyle with 23).

-Evan Longoria needs All-Star Game votes.

-Wade Davis thinks he may have an advantage facing his former team.