Tampa Bay Rays news and links: Off the near perfect game, Rays head to NYC

Fresh off a near-perfecto against the Orioles in Baltimore on Sunday, the Rays head to the Big Apple for quite an important four-game set with the Yankees. The Rays sit 6.0 games back of New York—eight in the loss column—and given that the Rays don’t play the Yanks again until a two-game set in the final week of the season, this is their best chance to chase down their division rivals. Losing the series, or even splitting two-two would make for quite the uphill battle down the stretch run. However, if the Rays were able to take three of four, they’d be four games back with plenty of time to go in the season.

Hell, the pipe dream of a sweep would leave them only two games back, practically a sneeze with over two months to go in the season. Here’s the loose plan for the series as of now:

Monday, 7:05 ET: Blake Snell (5-7, 2.1 fWAR, 4.70/3.44/3.13 ERA/FIP/xFIP) vs. James Paxton (5-4, 2.0, 4.01/3.63/3.92)

Tuesday, 7:05 ET: Opener + Jalen Beeks (5-0, 0.8, 2.79/3.50/4.72) vs. CC Sabathia (5-4, 0.7, 4.03/5.26/4.82)

Wednesday, 7:05 ET: Yonny Chirinos (8-4, 1.4, 3.11/4.18/4.01) vs. Domingo German (11-2, 2.0, 3.40/3.80/3.73)

Thursday, 7:05 ET: Charlie Morton (11-2, 3.7, 2.35/2.78/3.16) vs. J.A. Happ (7-5, 1.0, 4.93/5.16/4.89)

Should be a fun series. Hopefully.

Rays Links

• Schoenfield’s take: Rays just moss perfection, but can they reach October? — Good overview looking forward.
• Rays intend to buy at the deadline — Woooooooooooooooo!
• We have no idea what the 2019 MLB Trade Deadline will bring — But just what does that “buying” mean?
• Rays want to ‘responsibly’ add players at the trade deadline — And just what does “responsibly” mean?
• Why this trip to New York is so important to Rays / Rays to try to take bite out of Yankee’s lead —

• Tampa Bay Rays’ Brandon Lowe going to bat for mental health awareness — As if you needed more reason to love the Rays’ rookie.
• The Montreal perspective on the Rays’ split-season proposal / Does St. Pete need the Rays? / St. Petersburg’s future lies beneath Tropicana Field. Do the Rays stand in the way? — A trio of TB Times articles on the overwhelming story of the season (unfortunately).
• Evan Longoria talks hitting — For old time’s sake.
• My cousin Tommy is a Major Leaguer — Not Rays related, but an awesome story.

Tweet of the Weekend

We’re going to go ahead and assume this bad boy was tongue and cheek...