Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Fifty games in, has the outlook changed?

Big outing yesterday for the rookie Ryne Stanek.

There’s a lot of good postgame interviews from Rays Radio yesterday:

• Kevin Cash talked about how important it is to be ready to hit the fastball.
• Steven Souza sounds annoyed by some of the questions (which are sort of the same thing over and over), but he talks about how its important for him not to be too tight, and how staying loose helps to be ready when he gets a good pitch to hit.
• Erasmo Ramirez is always a good interview, and in this one he talks about getting hurt early by Mike Trout and Albert Pujols before collecting himself and pitching a quality start, and about how important it is for him not to fall behind hitters.
• Ryne Stanek may be a rookie, but he already has athlete-speak (the art of saying nothing) down pat.

Other Links

• Here’s a fantastic article by Ryan Pollack a few days ago on the benefits and drawback of more plate coverage (leaderboards featuring Corey Dickerson).
• Mark Topkin says that the Rays will activate Tommy Hunter from the DL today, and will likely either option Ryan Garton, or put Jumbo Diaz on the DL. Topkin says that “dropping” Diaz is a possibility, but that seems like a very un-Rays move, to release a player when they don’t have to.
• From Topkin’s notes, Kevin Cash says the Rays need to find a way to get rookies comfortable sooner.
• Does a team’s record in the first 50 games of the season predict how it will do for the rest of the season? Yes, but only very slightly. Preseason projections are a better bet. And a weighted combination of the two is a small amount better than preseason projections.
• By one measure the Rays had the ninth hardest schedule so far.
• The Orioles released outfielder Michael Bourn.