RAYS TANK

Where do you begin to document the details of the collapse?

A pitching staff that seems to constantly be pitching from behind in the count and allowing the lead off batter to get on base.

Kazmir vs. Hamels clearly favors the Phillies, especially with Lidge well rested. He could go 2 innings tonight and turn this into a six inning game for the Phiilies.

This puts even more pressure on the Rays hitters, who are doing their best windmill imitations in this series. Longoria and Pena are not seeing the ball well and continue to flail away. Upton by contrast is a bit too patient, especially late in counts, allowing umpires to do the backwards-K dance.

Crawford seem to be the only one having decent AB's. After that, there's not much to look forward to in the Rays lineup.

They have to really grind one out and hope to bring it home to St. Pete and change the momentum. The home cooking might help the younger Rays relax a bit. I think Philly fan has done an excellent job in their role as tenth man.

Blanton pitched masterfully last night, but I couldn't help thinking about the Dodgers Jay Howell when I saw that spot of pine tar he kept going to on the bill of his cap. Maddon took the Tony LaRussa route--when Kenny Rogers pine tarred and feathered the Cardinals, LaRussa refused to make an issue of the stains on his hand
and that is his prerogative, I'm not so sure I would have been quite as generous.

GO RAYS!!! BRING IT BACK HOME!!!
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UPDATE:

Apparently Maddon did take note of the spot. I don't remember if the broadcasters brought it up, but I might have missed it.

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/20081027_Pine_tar_on_Blantons_cap_.html



P.S. - Kudos to Fox for showing their PitchTrak results for virtually all ??-able ball/strike calls. Let the people decide. Most times, the umps are correct. But, Oh those other times!!!



Maybe you could say that this balances out the Jamie Moyer to Ryan Howard toss and catch that should have retired Carl Crawford, but in both cases, umpires are not in great position or flat out missing the calls. They've been fortunate in that the calls are not having direct influence on the outcome of the games they occurred in, but we are not exactly inspiring confidence here, are we?

If anybody is having a more disappointing showing as a team than the Rays in this series, it's TEAM BLUE.

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