Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Souza doesn’t feel good

The Rays won last night on the back of Steven Souza Jr.’s toughness, as Souza pushed through the pain in his foot to provide a home run, a double, three runs batted in, and a necessary defensive play.

Bill Chastain talked to Souza about the pain:

"I feel the same as I have the past couple of days," Souza said. "It's slowly getting better. When you find out there's no break, you kind of get a little peace of mind, and you kind of push the limit a little bit."

More good quotes on the other side of that link.

After the game, the Rays made a move.

Robertson’s activation isn’t announced yet, but optioning Featherston bodes well for his status.

Kevin Cash gave a long, happy interview after the game, that had one very interesting moment, where he talked about how the Rays don’t make it easy on their outfielders: “We play some very unique outfield positions.”

What exactly does that mean? How much of a shift in the outfield does it take to give the fielder an unusual angle and unsettle them?

Links

• Extremely good article by Scott Spencer at Baseball Prospectus about modeling pitch tunneling. Read this one.
• David Laurila is in Japan, and the interviews he’s sending back are fantastic. Here’s one with Lars Anderson, about the ways the baseball culture on an Independent League team is different, and here’s one with Frank Herrmann, specifically about pitching in the NPB environment.
• Speaking of the NPB, Masahiro Tanaka, who used to play for Herrmann’s current team, has some weird day-night splits.
• John Larue wrote about the biggest deficits teams have overcome to make the playoffs. Rays on the list.
• The Orioles turned a triple play. Second one this year.