MVN - Most Valuable Network

Kazmir & Co. Combine on Another Shutout.

 Another day another shutout, it’s just the Rays way lately. Scott Kazmir was the lastest Rays starter to jump on the shutout express with 6 scoreless innings. Trever Miller, Dan Wheeler and Troy Percival all pitched in with scoreless innings as well. It wasn’t as dramatic or smooth as James Shields the night before, but the result was exactly the same. The Rays beat the Angels 2-0 for the second straight night and continue to extend franchise best record (20-16) after 36 games as well as being 4 games over .500 for the first time this “late” into a season.

The Rays also set a franchise record with 8 straight home wins and tied a franchise record with 22 consecutive scoreless innings. They ran the franchise record for scorless innings at home to 31. Here are even more impressive numbers to digest. Over the past 4 games the Rays starting pitchers have thrown a combined 29.2 innings and allowed just 1 run. Over the past 3 games it’s an even more impressive 23 innings and 0 runs.

On the Mound: Kazmir was still spotty with the control, but was good enough. He threw 108 pitches in just 6 innings. He gave up 6 hits, walked 3 and struckout 6. The telling number is the pitches. It took Kazmir 16 more pitches to get through 6 innings than it did Shields to get through a CG shutout.

Dan Wheeler worked out of bases loaded jam, again. Troy Percival rebounded nicely coming off his first blown save, pitching a perfect 9th on 11 pitches and earned his 8th save.

At the plate: Normally if the Rays scored 4 runs in 2 games we would be screaming for offense, but nobody seems to mind when your shutting out the other team. The Rays basically scored the winning run in the 1st on an Evan Longoria ground out that made it 1-0. They added an insurance run in 8th on a Carlos Pena sac fly. Aki Iwamura(3) and Jason Barlett(2) combined for 5 of the Rays 7 hits.  Aki is riding an 8 game hitting streak.

Rays Next Game:

Andy Sonnantine(5-1, 4.63 ERA) looks to continue the shutout streak against Ervin Santana(6-0, 2.02 ERA). The Rays ended Joe Saunders(6-1) perfect season on Saturday and will look to do the same to Santana on Sunday.

OPS Notebook:

More impressive numbers for the Rays

•  Scott Kazmir passed Victor Zambrano, the man he was traded for, to claim top spot on the all time Rays win list with his 36th victory.
• The .543 win percentage the Rays have is a 119 point improvement over their .424 a year ago at this point. That is good for the 4th most improved record in the Majors and is the best turn around in the AL.
• On Friday James Shields became the first player since the late Cory Lidle to have 2 shuts outs of 2 hits or less in the same season. Lidle accomplished the feat in 2002.
• The Rays have 5 shuts outs in the first 36 games of the season. That is tops in the Majors.
• As a staff the Rays have the 10th best team ERA in the major leagues, 5th best in the AL.
• The Bullpen ERA of 3.28 is 2nd best in the American League behind the Athletics.

Traditional notes:

• Gary Glover and Al Reyes threw bullpen sessions for the team. Gary Glover could be activated as soon as today, while Reyes will make an extended spring training appearance on Monday. If Glover is activated, Kurt Birkins most likely will be optioned to Durham.
• Cliff Floyd could make his first start today at DH since being activated from the DL on Friday night. Floyd missed 29 games on the DL after right knee surgery.
• Ben Zobrist could be the next Rays position player to return. Zobrist could be back some time during the Yankee series. To make room for Zobrist the Rays will have to DFA Andy Cannizaro.
• Nobody knows when Willy Aybar will return, but when he does the Rays will have an interesting decision to make. Once Zobrist returns he will assume Cannizaro’s role. That would leave the Rays bench at Gross, Gomes, Riggans and Zobrist. Riggans and Gross are set as they are the primary backups at Catcher and CF. Gomes should assume the DH role against LHP and Zobrist will back up the middle IF spots. Zobrist is the only one with options so in order to keep everybody he would have to be sent Durham for Aybar. However, that would leave the Rays with no true backup at SS or 2B.  Interesting to see how that shakes out.

Check back later today for our latest exclusive interview.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 7:25 am and is filed under MVN Rays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.