The Rays Tank: Rays can't walk a Miley, Matt Moore plays catch

The Rays struggled for the second time against the young Arizona lefty Wade Miley, while the Red Sox beat the Astros 15-10, dropping the Rays to 1.5 games back. The Rays will try to even the season series tonight when Chris Archer takes on Randall Delgado. Rays fans will remember Delgado, an impressive young pitcher, from last year's interleague series against the Atlanta Braves.

In better news, Evan Longoria homered (ending the slump?) and Matt Moore played catch yesterday, and will do so again today. So far he is progressing well.

Batting stance noticer extraordinaire R.J. Anderson, over at The Process Report, has noticed that Sam Fuld has tweaked his mechanics, adopting a more open stance and a different follow through. With Desmond Jennings sidelined with a broken finger, Fuld's production has become more important of late.

Biogenesis

There's a Q&A by Jeff Sullivan up about Nelson Cruz and Jhonny Peralta, the two suspended players most apt to affect the playoff race.

The AL East

David Phelps and Michael Pineda both suffered setbacks in the minors, and will be shut down for the season.

A good take by Nick Ashbourne of Bluebird Banter about Brett Lawrie and Adam Lind. The takeaway is that Lawrie is actually playing pretty well now, which is a shame. I had sort of started to think he wasn't going to turn into a good major league player after all.

From The Hardball Times, a breakdown of the Red Sox's Jake Peavy. He's not what he used to be, but he doesn't walk anyone.

Other Links

This is why I take exception when people exaggerate how bad of a fielder Matt Joyce is.

Finally, it's from two days ago, but I try to read everything David Laurila posts. He consistently gets people within the game to give the rest of us real insight. This time he asks 12 players whether pitching is more of an art or a science.