Tampa Bay Rays News and Links: Houston - we have a victory

Rays News

• Rays battle to claim intense finale in Houston - Juan Toribio, MLB.com: The Rays showed a lot of heart to continue to fight in both the ultimately doomed Game 2 and ultimately relief filled victory in Game 3.
• It was another heroic performance from Travis d’Arnaud who had some 2-out magic in that bat:

• Lingering rib injury keeps Kiermaier on bench - Juan Toribio, MLB.com: KK’s ribs still sore, leaving his availability in question going into a huge series vs Wild Card leading Cleveland.
• Hurricane Dorian prompts Florida State League to cancel rest of the season - Ryan Kolakowski, Tampa Bay Times
• Grand Tour VII, Part One: Of Halos and Domes - Shane Tourtellotte, The Hardball Times: Tropicana Field is among the stadiums visited on this installment.
• Dave Willis is a Jomboy fan. Who knew?
• Charlie Morton was presented with an award before yesterday’s game:

• Blake Bivens’ manager, teammates describe Rays prospect at the center of a tragedy - Kirsten Fiscus, Tampa Bay Times: A truly heartbreaking story of such senseless loss.

• The Biscuits have shifted their scheduled weekend game to make a double header on Friday to allow players and other team personal a chance to attend the Bivens/Bernard services on Saturday.
• Image of the day:

Around the League

• How the Voit trade got Cards an elite reliever - Mike Petriello, MLB.com: The once counted lopsided steal of a trade by the Yankees has suddenly become much more of an even split with the emergence of Giovanny Gallegos (and a good lesson for folks not to judge a trade too quickly or too hyperbolically).

• King of the Soft-Tossing Lefties - Craig Edwards, Fan Graphs: Someday, I hope to see Ryan Yarbrough meander his way onto this list.

• Obscure rule nets A’s valuable insurance run - David Adler, MLB.com: when things are just going your way, the baseball gods find ways for wacky stuff like this.

• A Brief History of the Many Times Baseball Has Died - Emma Baccellieri, Sports Illustrated: A tremendous and fun look back at the very old, cliched, and all too repeated call of “baseball is dying!”.

• Nick Castellanos gets last laugh as he exposes the flaws of analytics in Cubs’ deadline coup - Bob Nightengale, USA Today: Normally, I like to share really fun articles or interesting reads in my weekly turn at the wheel of View from the Catwalks. I love to share with our DRB community things that will be interesting and enlightening to read about the Rays or the rest of the game of baseball. But not with this last link I’m sharing. This I’m sharing because it is really, truly, awful and worth reading as the same way you watch a really bad B-Movie. It’s so bad it’s almost good, from Bob Nightengale.