Ok so I can't be sure I have food poisoning, but something I ate has left me feeling pretty awful and doing other things I won't describe to you in this post. Regardless, the point of the story is you don't want to listen to me talk right about now so I'll throw my thoughts down on paper or this internet thing instead.
The only thing more sickening than whatever the hell I hate last night was the Rays, Yankees series this weekend. It's not that the Rays played terribly, but the amount of opportunities missed were frustrating beyond belief. Yesterday despite ending in a 9-5 Yankees victory, the game seemed well in reach for much of the day. The Rays led early after Carlos Pena blasted a 3 run home run in the first, but the Yankees got to David Price early and often.
Despite scoring 19 runs in the 3 games in the Bronx the series was littered with missed opportunities and men left on base. In Friday night's 5-4 loss the Rays were just 3-11 with runners in scoring position, leaving 8 runners on base.
Yesterday's game was even worse. The team scored 5 runs which should be enough to be in the game, but the opportunities were there to truly be in the game despite giving up 9 to the Yankees. After Carlos Pena's 3 run home run in the first the Rays went on to leave 7 men on base in just the first 3 innings, including leaving the bases loaded in the 3rd. In total the Rays were 2-14 with runners in scoring position, leaving a whopping 12 runners on base.
David Price certainly was not himself a day ago either, but every pitcher has a bad day every now and then. The Rays continued struggles with runners in scoring position however, is an issue this team has dealt with throughout the months of May and June, and has now trickled into July.
These struggles will continue to raise the level of speculation and wonder about the Rays plans before the trade deadline. Everyone around the team and nationally expects the Rays to make a move to try and get another bat into the middle of this line up. I still believe while the Rays will make a move or even a couple, that a splash trade for the likes of a Prince Fielder or Manny Ramirez, is more than unlikely.
Well that will do it for my non-podcast, podcast today. Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow morning to full health and ready to podcast again. Speaking of podcasting again, Mike Tyree and I will be bringing back the first Rays featured radio show On Deck in podcast form here at Creative Loafing and also on our new website ondecktampa.com in the coming week. Until tomorrow, I hope, I'm Pat Donovan and this is Deep Fried Sports, sort of.
Twitter @PatDinTampa
