That’s right folks!  The Rays were shut out by the Orioles Saturday evening in Jeff Niemann’s 2009 debut.  Niemann came out in the first inning and could not it his location.  This led to a bases loaded jack by Mora.  The Orioles sent 9 men to the plate in the 1^st inning and 5 of them crossed the dish.  The only good out of all this as the Niemann did settle down in the 2^nd and lasted 5.1 innings so we did not have to exhaust our bullpen.  Niemann looked like bundle of nerves out there throwing the ball every where Navi wasn’t.  I hope this outing gets the butterflies out and we do not have to witness this again.  Right now my thoughts on Niemann are definitely in question.  I know he’s got the stuff but does he have the nerve to stand out there and focus?  I guess we’ll see.

I spoke yesterday of my concern for our offense — that concern continues.  The offense had plenty of opportunities but could not get it done.  We were 0 for 11 with runners in scoring position.  That cannot continue if we are to have any hope of touching the post season in 2009.  Now, obviously we are only 5 games into the 2009 season and have a long way to go and I’m not about t read too much into this at this point.  However, I will say I’d like to see some of these guys clean up their act at the plate.  I am seeing too many swings at pitches not even remotely close to the K zone.  We walked away from this after collecting 8 hits, 3 of which were doubles.  Evan Longoria continued his hot hitting going 2 for 4 with one of the 2B. 

Today we look to salvage 1 game and avoid a series sweep.  As we have already lost the series let’s hope we don’t walk away from this totally outplayed.  James Shields will get the call today to stop this early season slide.  It will be interesting to see how he recovers from his opening day performance.

The Rays will travel back to The Trop to open against the NY Yankees on Monday.  Joining them in Tampa, by all reports thus far, will be BJ Upton.  Having a healthy BJ back should give some continuity to the lineup.  The only line up change to expect when he returns is which Gabe will start in RF.  We know that Navi will most likely get Sunday’s off and be replaced by Riggo. 

So, let’s not look too far into what we’ve seen to this point BUT let’s also be wary of what we’ve seen to this point.  These Rays have some work to do and unless they start it soon they will find themselves on the bottom of a very tough division.

So, a shout out to Shieldsy to start the turn around today! 

See you at 1:00 pm!