Tampa Bay News and Links: Rays leave NYC on a high note

Rays News

The Rays left the Bronx with after completing an impressive three game sweep. Solid defense, strong pitching and some timely hits — easy, right? The team’s next stop is Kansas City, where they will take on the currently-in-first-place Royals. Josh Fleming, a Missouri native, will get the start with dozens of friends and family in the stands.

As you may have seen, Yankees fans showed their displeasure with their team by....throwing baseballs and other debris at Rays players on Friday night.

Just when you thought you were up on your Tyler Glasnow facts, we have just learned that Glasnow has spent pre-COVID off seasons in New York City, playing chess in Washington Square.($)

And more on Glasnow, in this diary style report from the Athletic’s Joe Posnanski ($)

On the stadium site front: The Rays made a presentation to the St. Petersburg City Council, where they said they would like to build an open air stadium that would host the Rowdies and some part of the Rays season. Council seemed supportive (although details of the Rays plan are very much lacking) and urged Mayor Kriseman to slow down redevelopment plans until Rays situation is more settled. John Romano thinks taking things a bit more slowly makes sense, but the Rays need to show their cards much more than they have done so far. And for more discussion/analysis of the area’s history and the pros and cons of the development proposals, take a look at this very good Creative Loafing piece.

Around the League

A lot of baseball people have had fun watching a weekend series between the Padres and the Dodgers ($) considered the two favorites in the National League West. On Sunday, Blake Snell rebounded from a disaster of a previous start, giving up just two runs. He left after five innings, having thrown 95 pitches.

I know Scott Kazmir has had his ups and downs in baseball, but this weekend all eyes were on Sean Kazmar, who has persevered through 12 years of minor league bus rides ($)

Inspired perhaps by some video of Zack Greinke throwing a 60 mph curve, Carmen Ciardiello wonders whether strategic deployment of super slow stuff has proven to be effective.

Speaking of slow curves, I found myself completely mesmerized watching Minnesota Twins position player Willians Astudillo pitch the final inning of a blowout:

I’m not proud of my obsession with baseball stadium food, but the first thing I do before hitting up a new stadium is check out the food options. Good to know that some interesting choices will be back post-pandemic ($). (I still think the best ever is the strawberry shortcake with vanilla ice cream served at Tigers spring training games).

Final thought: I don’t even know what she is referencing in this tweet, but Sarah Langs is spot on. This is why baseball is great: