tampabayrays Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Yellow-bellied Game 7 starter for Rays seeks to exorcise Astros demons he had hoped stayed hidden
Charlie Morton has proven himself as a big-game pitcher in the past. It was just three years ago that Morton started Game 7 of the ALCS and got the win with five innings of two-out shutout ball. Ten days later, he came out of the bullpen to pitch the final four innings of Game 7 of the World Series,...

Like a Rorschach test, you can see whatever you want in the art of Dodgers collapses
For the past five years or so, the Dodgers have carried just about the same narrative. Or the same narratives, and eventually it’ll probably reach the same level of undying debate that LeBron v. Michael has. Either Clayton Kershaw is a playoff mess, or Dave Roberts constantly has a stiff breeze whis...

Astros getting good wood, but keep finding Rays' gloves at the other end of their ropes
Heading into the ALCS, it felt like the series would hinge on whether the Astros’ high-contact ways would be able to undo the Rays’ dominant starting pitching and bullpen. Would they find enough holes, or work their way through the Rays’ staff to eventually see them weaken through sheer attrition? T...

We’re only in the 2nd but it’s already the Manuel Margot game
We all dream of having a game named after us. Flipper Anderson has one. Reggie Jackson has one. Jack Morris got the ultimate prize, a Game 7 he’s known for. If you’re a true immortal, like LeBron or Michael, you get a whole flatbed of ’em. The list goes on....

Your totally not late at all LCS preview
Things aren’t supposed to start on Sunday. That’s why the phrase “Even God rests on Sundays” is around. It’s a deflation period. So yeah, I wasn’t totally on top of it with the ALCS starting yesterday. But it was a Sunday. They’re meant for long walks or brunch (which you make yourself these days an...

Kevin Cash continues to win by knowing how to lose
The Astros-Rays matchup for the right to head to Texas (boy, that makes it sound like a pyrrhic victory) has a lot of angles to it. It’s the league’s best contact team in the Astros vs. one of the worst in the Rays. It’s a bullpen full of darkness-bringers in Tampa versus one made up of guys who sou...

Everybody hates Aroldis (correct!) but thinks they hate the Astros vs. the Rays now, and ... that's bad
Schadenfreude in sports is strong. When it’s coupled with revenge, it’s beautiful....

Maybe Tom Brady is on Regeneron, too
It would seem that being a rich, chowder-brained pudwhack is contagious, as on the last drive of the Buccaneers’ Thursday night contest against the Bears, Tom Brady, perhaps showing the most dedication to his friend in the White House by letting his brain drip out his ear in tribute, forgot what dow...

Rays Rock Red Sox with Historic Lineup
Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash is pushing all the right buttons this season, as his team is atop the AL East despite having the third-lowest payroll in baseball....

2020 AL East Preview
At least two teams from the American League East have made the playoffs in each of the past five seasons, and as strange as a shortened 2020 season figures to be, the division figures to continue that streak with two of the elite teams in the majors — the Yankees and Rays — heading up the division....

Hold Everything! Angel Hernandez Finally Gets a Call He Can Handle
Remember The Late Shift, the early HBO original movie that chronicled the fight over The Tonight Show chair between Jay Leno and David Letterman? Both men battled for the show upon news of Johnny Carson’s retirement. In one scene, Leno, feeling the show slip away from him and also feeling like he’s ...

Tyler Glasnow Picked The Worst Possible Time To Tip His Pitches
Game 5 of the ALDS was more or less decided by the first 20 pitches thrown by Rays starter Tyler Glasnow. The Astros battered Glasnow for four runs in the bottom of the first inning, which wasn’t totally shocking given how fearsome Houston’s lineup is. What was surprising was how they went about sco...

Gerrit Cole Made Mincemeat Out Of The Rays
Game 5 of the American League* Divisional Series between the Astros and Rays functionally ended in the first inning. Not because the Astros put 10 runs on the board, a la the Cardinals, but because they put more than a single run on the board, in a game in which they had the insane and unfair Gerrit...

Rays Win Bullpen Game Over Justin Verlander To Send Series Back To Houston
The Rays roughed up Game 1 winner and eclipse lover Justin Verlander Tuesday night, got nine innings of tough pitching from their bullpen, and grabbed a 4–1 win to send their ALDS series against the Astros back to Houston for a winner-take-all Game 5. The Rays, who were widely considered to be chum ...

Poor Rays Sideline Reporter Keeps Getting Absolutely Soaked In Celebratory Postgame Alcohol
I suppose this is one of those good problems, but it’s still a problem! Fox Sports Florida sideline reporter Tricia Whitaker keeps getting mercilessly drenched by celebrating Rays players, who seem to view live postgame interviews as opportunities to dump truly gargantuan quantities of beer and cham...

Rays Outfielder Excited To "Stick It To The Man," Fails To Realize "The Man" Is His Team's Owner
A shitty thing about baseball, stretching back to Bob Costas’s largely wrong-headed conditional invocation of socialism and beyond, way back into the sport’s dusty past, is it has a way of making the teams that pay their players lots of money out to be the bad guys. For one thing, those teams appear...

The A's And Rays Deserve Better Than Fighting For The Right To Be Devoured By The Astros
It is an accepted truth that the Houston Astros are planet-eaters, loaded beyond reason with all the things a baseball team needs to beat its foes stupid. Put another way, manager A.J. Hinch could walk up to either Oakland’s Bob Melvin or Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash Wednesday afternoon and say, “Tell you...

"I'm About To Cuss On TV, I Need To Stop," Rays' Tyler Glasnow Says, Moments Before Cussing On TV
The Tampa Bay Rays clinched an American League wild-card spot—their first postseason berth since 2013—on Friday night with a 6-2 victory over the Blue Jays. They’ll face the A’s in the wild-card game Wednesday. To the enjoyment of 10–12 fans, the Rays have had one of their best regular seasons in a ...

The Secret Fun Of Wild Card Bumper Cars Without An Audience
Having been surprised and inspired by Comrade Burneko’s scolding paean to the virtues of minor league baseball (namely, that it’s fun and people you don’t hang out with seem to like it so it deserves its continued existence based solely on that fact), I decided to avert my eyes from the smoldering r...

Family Of Rays Prospect Blake Bivens Killed In Triple Homicide
ESPN reported this morning that the wife, child, and mother-in-law of Blake Bivens, who pitches for the Tampa Bay Rays’ Double-A affiliate, were murdered in Keeling, Va. on Tuesday. An 18-year-old named Thomas Bernard, who is the brother of Bivens’s wife, was arrested and charged with the murders af...