Ok gang…here’s the skinny on this game.  If you cannot hit you cannot win — period.  Andy Sonnanstine pitched his best game of this young season and still had to suffer the loss on his record.  He went 6 strong scattering 6 hits, 3 ER, 7 K’s and only allowing 1 free pass.  Sonny had trouble in his first 2 starts hitting his location and walking far too many batters.  He cleaned this up in this game and looked like the Sonny of last year.

The offense started out with a bang by scoring 2 runs in the first inning.  It was downhill from there as they were then silenced.  Check out the offensive numbers 

1 for 9 RISP

10 K’s

Only 4 BB

6 Hits

8 LOB

There aren’t too many teams in MLB that will win with numbers that look like that! I cannot say this enough – the Rays MUST improve their decision making at the plate and stop expanding the zone!  Carl Crawford has looked sick hitting (or trying to hit) in the #2 hole.  He has displayed absolutely zero plate discipline to this point in the season.  I’m thinking maybe time to look at placing JB in the #1 hole and moving BJ to #2 while sliding CC to #5.  Here are the numbers to back this up 

Jason Bartlett -   OBP – .451; BB – 4; K – 6

BJ Upton – OBP – .379; BB – 6; K – 9

Carl Crawford – OBP – .246; BB -1; K – 15

Seems like a fairly easy decision to me… 

Look I’m not here to slam our skipper Joe Maddon either.  However I will state my opinion in that this spray chart shift thingy does not seem to be working.  The outfield is playing far too shallow!  I’m fairly certain that at least one of those triples would have been outs had Kapler been playing his normal position thus saving a run.  I understand the theory Joe and his coaching staff have been working with but this experiment needs some rethinking ASAP!

Wednesday evening the Rays Send Jeff Niemann to the mound to start a Rays winning streak!