Tampa Bay Rays news and links: World Series begins

The World Series starts up today, and that means that Chris Archer also starts up his second job.

It’s a shame that there are people stuck in seasonal jobs in this country who have to piece together the rest of the year, but Archer seems to be a good sport about it.

Archer talked with Maddon yesterday.

Links:

• Brent Honeywell pitched a scoreless outing in the Arizona Fall League.
• Neil Solondz provided more details on the outing.
• Jason Hanselman profiled one of the more enticing free-agent targets at a position of Rays need: catcher Jason Castro.
• Mark Topkin wrote about managers Joe Maddon and Terry Francona, now facing each other in the World Series, who faced each other so often with Boston and Tampa Bay.
• David Laurila’s quick interviews are a good way to get into the World Series mood.

Trivia

This is a little bit artificial, but it’s from Baseball Reference and I kind of like it.

Let’s say that for any given year, a pitcher is considered a starter if he gets at least the fifth-most starts on the team that season. Then let’s say that you look at the entire history of the franchise, and choose the five guys who have been on of the top five starters in the most seasons, and call those guys the all-time organizational starting staff.

For the Rays, with their short history, it’s a lot of the pitchers you’d expect.

1. James Shields
2. David Price
3. Scott Kazmir
4. _____________
5. Chris Archer

But who’s the mystery number four?

Clues:

• He was a sixth round pick for the Rays.
• He last pitched in the majors for the Red Sox.