Tampa Bay Rays News and Links: “Willed himself to the major leagues”

It was a disappointing first week of Rays baseball as the team has now dropped three in a row after their thrilling comeback victory on Opening Day.

The offense has been the team’s undoing, mustering just three runs over their past three games. The pitching and defense however, have been spectacular with the pitching staff allowing just nine runs over the four game series.

Yesterday afternoon, Brad Miller launched his first home run of the year, which would be the sole offense from the Rays. Jake Faria gave up a run over four innings pitched, Jose Alvarado would give up a run during 1 inning of work, and then Yonny Chirinos made his major league debut, tossing four scoreless innings.

Chirinos became just the 3rd Rays pitcher to toss at least 4 scoreless innings during his major league debut, joining Enny Romero and Scott Kazmir.

Chirinos path to the majors is an interesting one, as he was signed as an international free agent. He didn’t fit the typical international prospect mold, so he went unnoticed by most scouts, nonetheless, the Rays picked him up and he has shined at each stop in their system along the way.

Today, the Rays were slated to take on the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium for their home opener, but the weather postponed those plans until tomorrow as it is currently snowing in the Bronx.

Rays Links

• From Fox News 13, Stuart Sternberg now says he is willing to invest at least $400M into a new stadium...under the right circumstances

“If somebody wants to walk in and do 25-million dollars a year naming rights tomorrow, my number of 150 goes up dramatically,” Sternberg said. “Give me 25-million a year to name a stadium and I’ll be at 400. I’ll go halfsies.”

• On Saturday, the Rays paid homage to their inaugural team as several players from that roster were on hand for pregame ceremonies. Several players recounted their thoughts from that first game
• Rays Tales: 10 things you didn’t know about the 1998 inaugural team

Around the League

• Ichiro returned to Seattle this past week and promptly turned back the clock as he robbed a home run at Safeco
• Shohei Ohtani made his pitching debut and looked like a completely different pitcher then his spring outings. He was dominant