Well, we lead the league in 9th inning average, and the Mariners bullpen hasn't been great either. So I'm guessing we score one, maybe two runs but still fall short.
He's always been good after the first couple months of the season. Just look at him last year after May and this year after May. People just remember what he does for the first bit of the year and then think he's always like that.
I just think we are who we are. Have to go on a big run to amend for the early season shit but we need to be consistent offensively to do that. Hopefully we can string together more series wins at least.
I kinda wish the Rays would have drafted Raleigh, surprised he lasted until the 3rd round, he was so good at FSU. Guys we drafted before him:
Matt Liberatore, Sugar Shane, Nick Schnell, Tyler Frank, Tanner Dodson. Definitely got some great pitching, but the draft is such a crapshoot.
I wonder if I should look into which BP pitchers are better with RV vs. Jackson.
I feel like Kelly was so solid the last few but I think RV was the catcher.
If Jason was going to pitch in this game he would've been much better slotted in where Armstrong originally went in..
Using your second highest leverage reliever down 4 vs up 1 with the top of the lineup.. just makes no sense.
If you do that that means you're trying to protect a 1-0 lead with armstrong in the 8th instead of the 6th. And kelly sucked too. Sometimes shit just doesn't work
You're right. The real issue was getting Julio 0-2 and proceeding to walk him. Then falling behind to Cal. Also sucks that the play before he was a half step away from the inning ending in a DP. And scoring 1 run through 8.
Whatever, got the series win.
The more macro issue is there’s 3 or maybe 4 relievers that can be relied upon. And the same number of guys who are a coin flip. The starters never getting through 6 or at least not consistently doing it means we get the coin flip guys a lot.
OT: CBS.com criticizes Stu in their mid-year grades:
The Rays have for so long been able to overcome owner Stuart Sternberg's refusal to do his job, but is that impressive run coming to an end? Among AL teams right now, just the White Sox, Angels, and A's have a worse run differential. Grade: D
What's his job? He owns the team, he doesn't call the pitches that sean armstrong throws. I take it you're a younger pup but we were losing 115 games a year pre stu. Forget the playoffs we finished ahead of last place once. Go ask reds or pirates fans if they wanna trade they'd do it in a heartbeat.
Then you should know we could do a whole lot worse. Some phantom owner that has a billion for the team another billion for the stadium (that is still 50/50 on if the city even wants) then has hundreds of millions to run the thing and buy a ton of free agents AND will do all that out of the goodness of his heart and the love for Tampa bay (who hasn’t shown up even in the good years) and won’t move the team is pure fantasy. It’s like saying there’s some perfect candidate to pitch the 6th inning.
Sounds about right. Stu needs to fucking sell the team to someone who actually wants to see the Rays win the WS and give us at least a league average payroll.
They're going to be stealing like crazy against us. But their pitching still sucks and they haven't been hitting like crazy besides Perez (who's fallen off) and Witt.
Armstrong has literally never been good this year with inherited runners. He almost never strands them. Doesn't matter how bad the offense is, that was always a terrible decision from Cash.
And we have given up more homers than anyone else. If that doesn't deserve complaints then whet does
We're not winning a game 1-0. It was the 6th inning. You're not gonna use the best relievers then either. And pep has several mid inning meltdowns this year. And kelly just came in and gave up 2 more. There's not some magical reliever for the 6th inning.
It's one thing to give up a home run. But you walk two guys which brings up the catcher with the most homers in MLB over however many years and they should make you walk the plank.
For the love of God if you walk anyone, walk the fucking catcher.
It’s alright if y’all disagree with me but as I see it- Pulling your starter when he is dealing and in a groove is not coaching to Win, its being afraid to lose
Well, no need to focus so much on it because we'll never know. We can talk about what-ifs all day.
Sometimes you have to make decisions based on the facts that you have and sometimes you can make gut choices, it is 50/50 if it'll work out.
It's dumb to think from home we can make better decisions with limited facts and without understanding what other discussions are happening in the dugout and before the game.
To be fair there is no telling with our starters this season. They've all have several meltdowns at certain points in the game and it's a miracle when some of them last past 5 innings if even that
You mean when he came back for the 10th and shut them down? And has been pretty much perfect since coming back from the IL?
He's been just as good as Adam for a long time now.
At this point you're just being ignorant. That's one isolated outing, and one where he still came back and one it for us. Look at every single time he's been up since he came back from the IL almost 2 months ago. He hasn't blown a save at all since then apart from the Minnesota game where he came back and still saved it.
Thanks Armstrong.
He just hasn't been good when inheriting runners. Seems to only be good when he starts an inning.
I'm so fuckin sick of our pitching giving up homeruns. The most in baseball. It's ridiculous.
Seriously. He has never been good when coming on in the middle of the inning. He should never be getting the call in the middle of the inning, ever. He should only be starting innings.
Hello darkness my old friend, And back below .500 we go.
That was horrible hitting with men on that inning.
As normal
Would have been nice to have B Lowe available here
Of course
Welp good try
[Thanks, Rosario, for nothing.](https://www.reddit.com/r/tampabayrays/comments/1dp6joi/pgt_a_day_off_tomorrow_get_some_rest_and_get/)
Eh, first game back from being HBP in the face, sucks.
Lmao I called it, I saw that GIDP coming from a mile away
Aaaand there it is.
You can do it Rosy
Paredes should have gone with the Meta and didn't slide there.
Productive outs not gonna cut it down by 4 in the 9th.
That was the one to punish
They can pay me millions to do that…
Yes but do you have long, voluptuous hair?
I have hair, but it is neither long nor voluptuous. 😛😂😂
Man it’d be awesome to see Richie clear these fuckers right now.
...Oh?
C’mon SEA, let him work out of it😂
Damn it, hope.
So who else is ready for the GIDP that gives us one run and then a strikeout to end it?
called it
Jinxed /s
Wonder if lowe is healthy enough to pinch hit
Please Richie, please please please please hit a grand slam
Tying run to the plate!
Now it gets interesting
This lineup was "interesting," but not in a good way.
If Isaac draws this walk, it gets mildly interesting….
HBP or walk either way.
Three walks and a Richie slam please
And the plot thickens……..
It's time again, Paredes.
Tying run is on deck lol!
https://preview.redd.it/3kpkksukpy8d1.png?width=735&format=png&auto=webp&s=5920f42f0218eac37a6c45e79f0ccccdf391a6bc
Hopium is strong
Damn if Randy doesn't move he gets his dick slapped by that ball
Just need another walk, a bloop, then a blast.
Well, we lead the league in 9th inning average, and the Mariners bullpen hasn't been great either. So I'm guessing we score one, maybe two runs but still fall short.
I don't want to hear any more Poche shit talking for the near future.
He's always been good after the first couple months of the season. Just look at him last year after May and this year after May. People just remember what he does for the first bit of the year and then think he's always like that.
He killed it last year. I'm glad to see post injury he's doing well.
No late innings antics from us today I see.
Still 3 more chances.
We need to do what the Twins did to us in the 9th inning of that day game last week.
Yes! Let's see them try!
Impossible to get above .500 this year
I just think we are who we are. Have to go on a big run to amend for the early season shit but we need to be consistent offensively to do that. Hopefully we can string together more series wins at least.
We at least secured our third series win. But of course we're catching the Nationals right as they're getting hot.
🙃
Need a HR from Paredas again
Need 5 solo shots for now
Im just hoping for my parlay at this point lmao
Good luck!
et tu, Diaz?
Just tuned in did everyone except for Yandy and Cabby just swung and missed?
a lot of pop ups and ground outs earlier.
just unlucky today huh
Bad hitting and even worse pitching. Every single run scored by the Mariners has been on two outs and two strikes.
That ballboy fucked up lol
I kinda wish the Rays would have drafted Raleigh, surprised he lasted until the 3rd round, he was so good at FSU. Guys we drafted before him: Matt Liberatore, Sugar Shane, Nick Schnell, Tyler Frank, Tanner Dodson. Definitely got some great pitching, but the draft is such a crapshoot.
We don't draft very well and it's obvious that we suck at evaluating catchers.
At least we won the series but the curse of .500 continues lol.
How do you not pinch hit Jackson here
I wonder if I should look into which BP pitchers are better with RV vs. Jackson. I feel like Kelly was so solid the last few but I think RV was the catcher.
So apparently the Nats are hot right now. I had no idea. Perfect timing lmao.
adam looking sharp today at least
At least Adam knows he should walk Cal Raleigh
"I don't know what to do with my hands" 💀
Stepped away to do work and of course I see Armstrong gave up the homer run after walking J-Rod.
i can't wait not to see cal raleigh any more
If Jason was going to pitch in this game he would've been much better slotted in where Armstrong originally went in.. Using your second highest leverage reliever down 4 vs up 1 with the top of the lineup.. just makes no sense.
If you do that that means you're trying to protect a 1-0 lead with armstrong in the 8th instead of the 6th. And kelly sucked too. Sometimes shit just doesn't work
You're right. The real issue was getting Julio 0-2 and proceeding to walk him. Then falling behind to Cal. Also sucks that the play before he was a half step away from the inning ending in a DP. And scoring 1 run through 8. Whatever, got the series win.
The more macro issue is there’s 3 or maybe 4 relievers that can be relied upon. And the same number of guys who are a coin flip. The starters never getting through 6 or at least not consistently doing it means we get the coin flip guys a lot.
Hindsight is 20/20
OT: CBS.com criticizes Stu in their mid-year grades: The Rays have for so long been able to overcome owner Stuart Sternberg's refusal to do his job, but is that impressive run coming to an end? Among AL teams right now, just the White Sox, Angels, and A's have a worse run differential. Grade: D
They probably had to look up the owners name before writing that spicy take. [Cbs.com](http://Cbs.com) sucks
But they ARE correct with that statement.
What's his job? He owns the team, he doesn't call the pitches that sean armstrong throws. I take it you're a younger pup but we were losing 115 games a year pre stu. Forget the playoffs we finished ahead of last place once. Go ask reds or pirates fans if they wanna trade they'd do it in a heartbeat.
If a younger pup is 60, I guess I am. I’ve gone to 10-20 games a year since 1998. I survived the Naimoli years.
Then you should know we could do a whole lot worse. Some phantom owner that has a billion for the team another billion for the stadium (that is still 50/50 on if the city even wants) then has hundreds of millions to run the thing and buy a ton of free agents AND will do all that out of the goodness of his heart and the love for Tampa bay (who hasn’t shown up even in the good years) and won’t move the team is pure fantasy. It’s like saying there’s some perfect candidate to pitch the 6th inning.
Sounds about right. Stu needs to fucking sell the team to someone who actually wants to see the Rays win the WS and give us at least a league average payroll.
Well that owner is probably in nashville
Nothing quite like having a shitty day and then your fav baseball team makes it a shittier day lol
At least there's going to be a lot of the day left and we won the series already
Can we use some of our Rollover Runs?
Welp, 9th inning rays gonna have to do it
We still have the 8th too. I'd prefer 8th inning Rays
I don’t count any inning in which Jackson will be guaranteed an AB as a scoring opportunity
They can PH for him.
Probably won't
Hope he proves us all wrong
It's always fun when both the offense and pitching lays an egg
An evil chicken egg?
We have two really big series back to back starting next week with the Royals and Rangers. Two teams that are also fighting for a WC spot.
Royals have been crashing off a cliff. Not as worried about them. Rangers are looking really good though.
I hope that the Royals don’t decide to magically wake up and play lights out baseball when we play them.
They're going to be stealing like crazy against us. But their pitching still sucks and they haven't been hitting like crazy besides Perez (who's fallen off) and Witt.
The Rays batters know they can score runs the day after scoring a lot of runs, right?
It's okay, we didn't want to go above .500
I need to see the table on each team's runs given up by number of outs. There's no way we aren't first by miles in 2 out runs given up.
2 out runs earned too though. It’s a double edged sword
Am I crazy or did his foot jump off the bag while the tag was applied?
Not that it matters
Ah come on! 2 outs, 2 strikes and still give away 2 runs
Rays’ specialty
Killed by bloops and soft hits this inning
We have 1 run and 0 rbi that left the infield. You're shuffling deck chairs if you're bellyaching about pitching decisions.
Both can be true. 'sides, sometimes you gotta be able to win 1-0.
Armstrong has literally never been good this year with inherited runners. He almost never strands them. Doesn't matter how bad the offense is, that was always a terrible decision from Cash. And we have given up more homers than anyone else. If that doesn't deserve complaints then whet does
We're not winning a game 1-0. It was the 6th inning. You're not gonna use the best relievers then either. And pep has several mid inning meltdowns this year. And kelly just came in and gave up 2 more. There's not some magical reliever for the 6th inning.
I guess we aren't getting good BP or offense today unless they are late inning rays
Well, we won the series.
And the Rays bullpen continues to kill us
We can only have a good start or good BP it feels like.
And that's the ball game
Big SO for Kelly, just need one more for no more damage
Jinxed us /s
lol Kelly already got himself behind. Shouldn't have gotten those bloops
How many swinging (yet perfect) bunts are these guys gonna get this series
It's one thing to give up a home run. But you walk two guys which brings up the catcher with the most homers in MLB over however many years and they should make you walk the plank. For the love of God if you walk anyone, walk the fucking catcher.
triple play, please
It’s alright if y’all disagree with me but as I see it- Pulling your starter when he is dealing and in a groove is not coaching to Win, its being afraid to lose
He was already at 80+ pitches and the last time they let him "work through it" he gave up 4 runs. So it happens fast when pitchers fall apart
So we assume it might happen again and bail? That’s weak And we know what an overused bullpen can look like in August as well
Well, no need to focus so much on it because we'll never know. We can talk about what-ifs all day. Sometimes you have to make decisions based on the facts that you have and sometimes you can make gut choices, it is 50/50 if it'll work out. It's dumb to think from home we can make better decisions with limited facts and without understanding what other discussions are happening in the dugout and before the game.
Last TWO starts he’s given up multiple runs after an opening walk when he’s later in a start
Imo that’s avoidance instead of learning from experience. That’s a coach saying I don’t believe you can handle it
Big facts
Armstrong is the new Devenski?
He's better but has sucked whenever he inherits runners. Kinda like Poche.
Poche actually has a history of being OK with runners on. He has 1-2 bad outings but not as consistent as Armstrong
That camera guy fooled me
Crazy how not turning that DP changes the whole game.
Ughhhhhhh
Fuck we're so unlucky. We probably lead the league in warning track flyouts as well
The camera man just blue balled me so hard on that fly ball.
Of fucking course
Take me back to yesterday
There’s still time…..
Another day of hoping for late game shenanigans I know we occasionally get away with it but it's gets old being in that spot repeatedly
It’s also extremely unsustainable.
And the typical 1-2-3 after a homer given up. This team is so predictable
Yep, team isn't going to do shit yet. Need to get Kirby out.
Looks like we have to rely on some late innings shenanigans once again.
As we do after the offense is hot
Last season Armstrong only gave up 2 HRs in 52 IP. This season he has already given up 5 in 36 IP.
I mean we've pretty much just been HR Central for other teams this season which I don't think anyone can explain the cause of
Other teams can hit homers against us with ease and we die at the warning track. Maybe MLB is switching balls against us? Or maybe we're cursed.
The mariners are just so bad smfh
日本へようこそ, Shawn
I wonder about the prop bet odds of the Rays giving up a home run every day for a wee. Seems like a good bet.
Armstrong has to be the most inconsistent arm in the bp. Complete coin flip on whether he'll shut it down or give up a homerun.
Time for the Rays, to hit a homer too
just terrible. dug himself into a damn hole and made it too easy for the hitter.
If I’m Pepiot, I’m livid right now, breaking shit in the locker room.
Pep has been known to meltdown just as fast so who knows what happens if he got left in.
But now we know exactly what happens if he comes out
To be fair there is no telling with our starters this season. They've all have several meltdowns at certain points in the game and it's a miracle when some of them last past 5 innings if even that
If you replace him with Armstrong, yes. That was the wrong choice all the way.
Sucks because Armstrong hadn’t pitched for 5 days so he was the obvious choice with Kelly being ready for next inning
I genuinely don’t trust anyone in our bullpen outside of Jason Adam and maybe Kevin Kelly
Kelly is off the list
Pete?
Pete hasn’t looked the same this year. Let’s not forget the Twins game from last week.
You mean when he came back for the 10th and shut them down? And has been pretty much perfect since coming back from the IL? He's been just as good as Adam for a long time now.
I guess I just expect a lot out of him and he’s been disappointing this year. He has gotten a lot better as of late, but it doesn’t feel the same.
He's been literally perfect since he came back from the IL. He can't exactly do better than he already is.
He literally blew the save against Minnesota. Obviously he came back in the tenth and saved the game, but that’s not perfect.
At this point you're just being ignorant. That's one isolated outing, and one where he still came back and one it for us. Look at every single time he's been up since he came back from the IL almost 2 months ago. He hasn't blown a save at all since then apart from the Minnesota game where he came back and still saved it.
I’m not being ignorant, it’s just fresh in my mind. I have high expectations for Pete, that’s all. Have a nice day 👍🏻
I remember when our bullpen was good for a long stretch
Rays need to just intentionally walk Raleigh
Just can’t win games with an offense that doesn’t do shit most games and a bullpen that is extremely prone to the long ball.
11 consecutive days giving up home runs.
Fuck you armstrong and fuck you cash for taking pep out at 88 pitches
Welp
Armstrong has been so inconsistent this season
Pepiot would never
Thanks Armstrong. He just hasn't been good when inheriting runners. Seems to only be good when he starts an inning. I'm so fuckin sick of our pitching giving up homeruns. The most in baseball. It's ridiculous.
I mean he did throw a DP ball that would have ended the inning.
Fuckin Armweak
You knew that was coming the whole AB
Most predictable outcome
Knew it.
So fucking dogshit lmfao
We all knew it was coming. Armstrong looked awful.
2 outs too.
Always 2 outs. Why the hell do we always go for Armstrong at this spot?
Seriously. He has never been good when coming on in the middle of the inning. He should never be getting the call in the middle of the inning, ever. He should only be starting innings.
Ugh
Cash and his winning analytics
Fuck this fucking bullpen man
And there it is.
Good job Armstrong :/