Tampa Bay Rays News and Links: Alvarado ready to close (out any inning)

Rays News

Alvarado ready for any role in Rays’ bullpen - Juan Toribio, MLB.com: No matter when in the game Cash decides to unleash that golden arm, Alvarado is one of the games most dangerous weapons in relief.

Ten things to watch from the Rays this spring - Marc Topkin, TB Times: What is Marc watching for in spring training?

Best of Spring Training workouts photo blog - The Ray Tank: Will Vragovic and Kevin Sabitus deliver some tremendous shots of the early spring training days for the Rays.

First lineup card for the 2019 Rays

Also the expected pitchers used features quite a few interesting names fighting for spots

Some injury news Topkin is reporting: Ian Gibaut injury is not as bad as it was feared, and Matt Duffy will be sidelined a couple days with a “little hamstring tweak”.

Fox’s Kevin Burkhardt to join Rays TV crew on limited basis - Marc Topkin, TB Times: Burkhardt will be filling in for Dewayne Staats for 15-20 games this year. A big time get, especially in a fill in role.

Baseball Prospectus previews the 2019 Rays: Here’s what’s ahead for Blake Snell, Kevin Kiermaier and Tommy Pham - Thomas Bassinger, TB Times: Tom takes a break from the Bucs to crack open the BP annual to see what he can expect for this season.

Around the league

Foul Balls Are The Pace-Of-Play Problem Nobody’s Talking About - Travis Sawchik, FiveThirtyEight: Interesting look into a less heralded slow down in the modern game.

Statcast adding game preview pages, and they look fantastic!

Sounds of Spring

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