Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Devil Rays Earn 2nd Win Against Bosox

I'm more of a football fan, but I like baseball, too.
It was sweet seeing the D-rays take two in a row from Boston, first on Scott Kazmir's two-hit shutout, and then building on Casey Fossum's start to beat Curt Schilling.
Schilling, of course, ingratiated himself to Rays fans by suggesting a couple of years ago that Rays pitchers were throwing at Boston players intentionally. It later came out that Boston pitchers were throwing at Rays players intentionally.
Throwing on the inside of the plate has been emphasized by TB coaches, but I'm not aware of TB pitchers throwing to hit the other team's players except in retaliation. That, in fact, probably accounts for the entire situation. The Rays' pitching staff has been so thin (especially the bullpen for the last couple of years) that it would almost be stupid for the other team not to throw at Rays players. If the Rays' pitcher retaliates, he gets tossed and the other team gets to face a weak bullpen.
I'm expecting a strong second half if the pitching can ascend to mediocrity on the whole (Kazmir's the bomb, of course). Hopefully we can make Boston as miserable this year as we did last year for the Yankees. A few more wins against the Yankees would be nice, too. Our batting order is pretty solid now with Baldelli back in the lineup. I've had questions about the Navarro trade, but the guy proved he can handle a bat (reached base on a bunt a few hours ago), and he's been better throwing to second than I expected (the one area where Toby Hall was clearly the better of the two, I think).
Hopefully, Boston exhausted their offensive output with the futile 9th inning rally.
Sweep!

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