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Percival back on the shelf

During today’s game Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Troy Percival fell on the mound while throwing a pitch. He officially left the game because of tightness in his hamstring, thou the official type of injury hasn’t been announced yet. The pitcher will undergo an MRI and then be re-evaluated by team doctors on Thursday. This could be worrisome for Rays fans, as Percival was already experiencing tightness in the hamstring last week, so he possibly could of made the injury worse in the fall. The ironic part of all this? Ken Rosenthal had just put out an article today saying bullpen health is key for the Rays, especially with Percival. Read more

The Moose is loose!

New York Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina is continuing his torrid stretch. He’s now won 5 straight starts and is currently tied for the American League lead in wins with 6. Mussina baffled the Tampa Bay Rays all night long. Moose allowed 1 run and 5 hits over 6 and 1/3 innings, striking out 4. Moose did have to escape a couple big james. Read more

Rays, make up your mind!

The Tampa Bay Rays had a major news conference scheduled for this afternoon, many people thought this would be to announce a contract extension with up and coming star BJ Upton. Which would make perfect sense. But that was not the case, the conference was to announce the signing of rookie Evan Longoria to a deal that will span 6 years and possibly as long as 9. So the thought in my mind is this. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON! MAKE YOUR MIND, IS THE TAMPA SUN FRYING YOUR BRAINS TO MUCH?!?!?!?!?!

This team first sent Longoria to the minors to start the season cause they felt he wasn’t ready for the bigs. Second, they call him up after about 2 weeks to play third, even thou he was playing like absolute crap in the minors. NOW, they give him a VERY VERY long term deal, which guarantees he won’t see the minors again this season. It says what everyone thought, Tampa just sent him to the minors to guarantee they can hold his rights for an extra year. Luckily, that will all be avoided now and he only lost two weeks of his promising major league career.

Here’s the contract thou it works great for Tampa, absolutely wonderful. I will give them so much credit for that. He’s locked up for 6 years at just $17.5 million. This covers his first 3 years of forced contracts and 3 years of arbitration. So he’ll make more in those first 3 years, but the team will make out during arbitration. This kid could easily have made more in arbitration but its good to see he’s committed to helping build this franchise. The deal could wind up 9-years and $44 million if all options are exercised. The Rays hold a 1-year option for 2014, and then a 2-year option for 2015-16. So those extra 3-years, would essentially be 3-year $27 million, still VERY low for what a player of his caliber could be by then.

But all of this does protect him if injuries or he just winds up sucking. Hopefully for him 2015-2106 is a mutual option. Great deal for the Rays, but still WHAT THE HELL!?!?! Why can’t teams just tell the truth sometimes, we all knew he went to the minors because of money, just admit it!

Longoria in, who is out?

So much for not being ready for the major leagues. Tampa Bay Rays star 3B prospect Evan Longoria was called up to the majors from AAA-Durham and made his major league debut tonight against the Baltimore Orioles. I thought this guy wasn’t ready for the Majors??? Well, I thought he was but the Rays front office didn’t. But after only 7 games in the minors, he’s all of a sudden is ready??

Now lets get this straight first, Longoria was called up due to an injury to Willy Aybar, whom is currently on the disabled list. In his 7 games at Durham, Longoria is 5-25 with 0 extra base hits and 1 rbi. Great start, so why did the Rays call him up even with the injury is the question. The Rays currently have Eric Hinske and Joel Guzman who could all play third base, and quite capably for a 2 week period. It again makes you wonder why the Rays really sent this kid down to the minors saying he wasn’t ready. Could the rumors be true about the Rays just wanted to save money?

By starting the first 2 weeks in the minors, Longoria now has to wait an extra year to become a free agent. A player must spend at least 172 days on a ML roster to receive credit for a full season, by spending 2 weeks in the minors he can now only accrue 167. The Rays now own the rights to Longoria through the end of the 2014 season.

This whole thing just shows the dirty side of baseball, the business end. The Rays knew along Longoria was ready, no matter what they may say, and decided they want to keep his services. Luckily for this kid, he’ll still get almost the entire season in the show instead of against inferior talent at AAA.

So who’s going to go when Aybar comes off the DL? You’d have to consider the last roster spot would come down to Eric Hinske and Nathan Haynes. Problem, Haynes is out of options. So could a trade be worked out? Jonny Gomes or Hinske could easily become trade targets for a playoff contending team who wants a little more experience and pop off the bench. Will be interesting to see.

As, I finish writing this, Longoria just finished his first at-bat. It was a ground out to second.

Garza’s nerve could strike the Twins

The radial nerve irritation that pitcher Matt Garza is currently experiencing could come back to haunt the Minnesota Twins. The Tampa Bay Rays are debating on whether or not to file a grievance with Major League Baseball and seek compensation from the Twins.

The problem here is did the Minnesota Twins know about the injury before the Rays and Twins made a trade this off-season. The Rays currently contend they knew Garza had been bothered by this when he played college ball at Fresno State but had no idea he was still being bothered by it. Garza says he did have this problem while pitching for the Twins but usually just pitched through it. Garza pulled himself out of Monday night’s game and said afterwards “This time it was just real bad, I knew something was up”

The Twins contest there were no problems with Garza’s arm while there. “If he said he was hurt, I’m not going to call him a liar or anything like that,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said, “but he should have let us know that he might have had an injury. Normally, it’s good when the team you are pitching for knows that” Later on in an interview in Chicago, Gardenhire said, “Wasn’t he healthy all spring? Now, he’s going to say he was hurt? That’s no good … No, we have no documents of Matt Garza ever having any problems with us.”

This whole situation could get very ugly if Garza misses more then just a few weeks. The Rays gave up a LOT to acquire one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. Remember, in this deal they gave up their future star outfielder Delmon Young as well as Brendan Harris. The hardest part for the Rays thou will be proving that the Twins knew of this injury and that it could affect his future.

MLB doesn’t like to deal with situations like this, but if the Rays file that grievance they’ll be forced to deal with an issue that will be very public. The pieces involved are just to big for them to not do a full investigation. If there would wind up any compensation it would depend on how long Garza is on the DL and how much it effects his future abilities.

Here’s a link to the Raysindex, they’ve got an excellent article on this topic.

Yankees - Rays Series Recap

Here’s the 2nd edition of my New York Yankees season long series recap. This series against the Tampa Bay Rays, it showed many things about both teams and why the “experts” all feel the way they do about them. The Yankees in the first 2 games had no pitching, no hitting and looked flat out old against the hot hitting, speed and good young pitching Rays. In the last 2 games, it was vintage Yankees baseball, stellar pitching and timely hitting while the Rays looked again like well the old Rays. Lets break the series down.

Game 1: Rays 13 - Yankees 4. W - Andy Sonnastine; L - Ian Kennedy HR - Cliff Floyd (2), Carlos Pena (2), Hideki Matsui
Game 2: Rays 6 - Yankees 3. W - Edwin Jackson L - Andy Pettitte S - Troy Percival HR - Jonny Gomes, Willie Aybar
Game 3: Yankees 2 - Rays 0. W - Chien-Ming Wang (2-0) L - James Shields (1-1) S - Mariano Rivera (3). HR - Hideki Matsui (2)
Game 4: Yankees 6 - Rays 1. W - Mike Mussina (1-1) L - Jason Hammel HR - Jonny Gomes (2), Bobby Abreu

Rays hitting. The Rays definitely look like a contender in the American League East. When facing mediocre pitching they should dominate which is evident by Games 1 & 2. In Game 1, Ian Kennedy had nothing at all, no control and no pop to his not-so fast fastball and got abused for it, giving up 6 runs in 2 and 1/3 of an inning. The impressive thing is both homeruns didn’t even come off Kennedy they came off the Yankees bullpen (LaTroy Hawkins and Kyle Fransworth), which means the Rays were able to beat Kennedy with timely hits and their speed. It’s a line-up that can beat you in multiple ways. In Game 2, Andy Pettitte didn’t have his greatest stuff and got beat pretty good for it, he routinely had to work out of jams all day long and in reality the Rays could of and should of scored more runs.

The last 2 games is when the bats started to disappear, when the Yankees got good pitching. Being such a line-up they are very vulnerable to good pitching, moreso then other teams as its a free swinging team. Most of the hitters still haven’t learned the patience needed at the major league level. A tell tale sign of this is the 6 strikeouts by Wang, a guy who never strikes anyone out, and the 2 hits given up by Mike Mussina, a guy who everyone hits around.

Yankees Hitting. The Yankees bats have been in a season long cold spell, but near the end of the series there were a lot of positive signs that the guys can take with them to Kansas City. In the first game of the series, Sonnastine just didn’t completely own the Yankees hitters but did early on. The team only had one big inning and that was only after Andy had to sit on the bench for an extended period of time while the Rays destroyed Kennedy in the top half of the inning. In the last 3 games, the Yankees bats started to wake up even thou the run totals didn’t really show it. The sign is hit totals, on Saturday and Sunday 9 hits, Monday 11. Monday is the day they finally broke through on the scoreboard tallying 6 runs. Bobby Abreu continued his season long tear by terrorizing the Rays pitchers, in Monday’s game he missed the cycle by only a double. He hit a laser shot homerun in the first to give Moose a quick lead. Hideki Matsui had a couple homeruns. The biggest plus for the team thou was Robinson Cano. Cano was horrendous verse the Toronto Blue Jays and in the first game against the Rays. Starting in game 2 there were signs of him breaking out of his slump as he started swinging the bat better by Monday night those outs started to find holes and he was getting more line drives then flares.

Rays Pitching. What a difference a year makes. The Rays actually have competitive starting pitching now and thats without their ace Scott Kazmir. Every pitcher baffled the Yankees hitters, even on Monday the Yankees didn’t start scoring till Hammel started to tire out. I believe the key to this staff, is Edwin Jackson. The guy was truly hit or miss last year and it was purely based on control issues, which is something he did have problems at times with on Saturday. At times in the game, he looked completely unhittable and that he could be a dominate pitcher, if he continues to maintain control the Rays could actually have a 3-headed monster at the top of their rotation when kazmir comes back at the end of the month.

Yankees pitching. Wow, this series completely showed what the Yankees could be, good and bad. Kennedy was the rookie getting rocked, Pettitte was the grizzly vet that lost his stuff. Moose was the guy who found the fountain of youth, while Wang was the usual solid regular season starting pitcher. So which one of these should continue for the season, one, two, all of them? Who knows its September. Pettitte hadn’t been up against MLB players in a few weeks due to his back injury and it was pretty cold out there, so we can’t make an accurate read on him for another couple starts. Kennedy, he’s a rookie, he’ll have games like he did Friday its just something Yankees fans will have to deal with. Moose he’ll be back and forth, today he had location and all his pitches working for him, even at his advanced age he should be able to dominate on days like that. The bullpen looked great all weekend long, minus LaTroy Hawkins. Brian Bruney, Ross Ohlendorf, Billy Traber, Joba Chamberlain, Mariano Rivera all showed why some feel this could be one of the better bullpens in baseball, while Hawkins and Farnsworth showed why its not a great bullpen.

Injuries: Tampa Bay - Cliff Floyd (knee) should be day-to-day. Dionner Navarro (sliced hand) - day-to-day.
New York - Derek Jeter (strained quad) day-to-day.

All in all, this series just showed like the last why I don’t see any AL East team to win more then 95 games. This division is going to be a battle from start to finish, and the perennial cellar dwellers are no longer going to be push overs. Overall thou, it was a good series for the Yankees. They did get good pitching, the bullpen showed it can stop the bleeding when their starters get hammered. While the best closing duo in baseball showed again that if the starters do their job its now a 6-7 inning game for the other team. At the same time, the bats started to wake up just in time for a trip to play the hot pitching Kansas City Royals. It’s a good thing to, since these guys usually like to hit in KC.

Yankees - Blue Jays Series Recap

MySportsRumors.com is dedicated to talking news and rumors about all sports, all teams. But being a New Yorks Yankees fan, there will be plenty of articles dedicated to what dominates my life from April to October. With that being said, I’ll be doing a recap of every Yankees series this year. In those I’ll talk about the plus and minuses for them and also the teams they played. No worries this won’t be a pro-Yankees hype them up article, if they stink up the joint I’ll admit it. So let’s start.

The Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays played three pretty entertaining games over the last few days, if you had a chance to watch this series you’d agreed. In the end, the Yankees took 2 out of 3 games but the Blue Jays with a bounce here and there could of easily won 2-1 or even have swept. It was that close of a series and might just be a glimpse as to whats to come in the American League East this season (a hard fought battle down to the wire).

Game breakdown
Game 1 - Yankees win 3-2. Winner - Chien-Ming Wang, Loser - Roy Halladay, Save - Mariano Rivera. Homeruns - Melky Cabrera
Game 2 - Blue Jays win 5-2. Winner - AJ Burnett, Loser - Mike Mussina, Save - Jeremy Accardo. Homeruns - Vernon Wells and Alex Rodriguez.
Game 3 - Yankees win 3-2. Winner - Joba Chamberlain, Loser - Brian Wolfe, Save - Mariano Rivera (2).

Overall, it was a pitching dominated series. Minus Mike Mussina, all of the starting pitching on both teams were pretty impressive. Overall, I think Moose even was fairly effective too but he’s going to hang some balls up there. With his age, he doesn’t have the extra mph to sometimes get away with it, so he will give up a few more runs then others on the team. But 4 runs in 5 and 2/3 innings is pretty much what he’ll give all year long, not bad, not good.

The other starters, Wang and Halladay both were down right nasty in game one. Both showed why they’re aces and perennial Cy Young candidates. Burnett in game 2 was pretty impressive as well. His strike out total may not show it, but he baffled Yankees hitters for most of the game. Philip Hughes, albeit just his first start this year, showed why Brian Cashman has so much trust and wouldn’t include him in a Johan Santana trade. He basically used two pitches the entire game, his fastball and curveball, with both confusing Jays hitters. A 90+ mph fastball and switching to a 70 mph curve will do that. Frank Thomas jumping like a little girl in the box can show you that. Dustin McGowan was just as effective as Hughes, his first 5 innings the Yankees could not touch the kid. Only reason, they got to him in the 6th inning was because fatigue set in and he just couldn’t find the strike zone anymore.

Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera. It looks like the Yankees could be turning back the clock to 1996. Turning close games in to a 7 inning game. Remember Rivera and John Wetteland, it was a big reason the Yankees won that year. It’s only 2 out of 3 games, but if this keeps up fans are going to enjoy another playoff berth.

The scores didn’t show that either team was effective at the plate but there were bright spots for both. The Yankees only scored 8 total runs but the key players showed some signs of life. A-Rod with a big homerun in game 2, although with the team down 5-0 at the point. Bobby Abreu had maybe the best all around series for the Yanks, batting .500 with only 1 rbi and a couple walks. He set the table like he should a couple times but the rest of the team just couldn’t get him across. Jeter was well Jeter , batting .300 and Melky hit the big game-winning homerun in the first game. The surprise to me was Robinson Cano he was amazing in spring training putting every ball in play and batting .400+. A slump was inevitable unfortunately for him it started with the regular season. The lineup missed Jorge Posada’s presence but he should return for the Tampa Bay series.

The Blue Jays were in the same boat as the Yankees, didn’t score much but had some moments where the true potential of their lineup showed. Alex Rios had his typically good series against the Bombers by extending his hitting streak to 24 games against them. He went 4 for 9, with 3 homers and 3 walks, even stealing 2 bases. Vernon Wells started his season at a .333 clip with a big homerun in game 2 of Mike Mussina. If the middle part of that lineup can stay healthy they’ve got some big number potential.

Whats up next for these teams. Toronto makes their home debut against the Boston Red Sox. The Yankees continue at home with the Tampa Bay Rays visiting.

Final thoughts:
The Blue Jays showed they are a team to be reckoned with this year in the American League East. If they continue with their strong play against the Red Sox, both of the divisions big guns will have to worry. If they won 2 out of 3 in that series, they’ll be 3-3 against 2 of the game’s best teams and that would be a huge statement to start.

The Yankees with minimal hitting this series found a way to remain competitive. If they are able to continue and get pitching like they did this team will do a lot better then many think. Hughes will hit some rough patches, its his first full season so it will be expected.

The American League is going to be fun to watch this year, even for April these games were compelling and had late September/October previews all over them.

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