For all those Devil Rays fans out there, it seems this franchise again will not be in the postseason. There are a few positive things to take away from this season, however.
The emergence of James Shields along with Scott Kazmir has formed a decently formidable front end of the rotation, which will serve the Devil Rays for years to come. Kazmir has been a solid pitchers over the past few years and Shields will have to show people more next season but he has been solid. Both have winning records and both might have double-digit victories by the end of the season on a team that has the worst records in the American League. Kazmir facing teams currently at records of .500 or better, including interleague games, holds a record of 6-3 with a 3.12 ERA, as of August 16. Those are solid statistics against very good teams.
The power emergence of the first baseman Carlos Pena has been a pleasant boost for the middle of the Devil Rays lineup. Pena has shown what the Detroit Tigers expected from him when he was in their organization a few years back. Pena has over 20 HR and although his batting average has come down a bit, he's been a quality bat in the middle of the lineup and still holding a career high average. Another young bat has been B.J. Upton, who’s had a few cups of coffee in the majors with the Devil Rays before finally emerging this year. An infielder by trade, his move to the outfield has not hurt him at the plate. He's been a consistent clutch bat batting .366 with runners in scoring position and shown his best power and ability against the division rival New York Yankees with a .463 batting average, 4 home runs, and 13 runs batted in. Upton also has not hurt the team defensively only committing 1 error in 40 games in the outfield.
The downfall: The bullpen has been bad, and that's being nice. It has been terrible. It has a collective ERA of 6.51, which is terrible. If you figure the bullpen pitches on average of 3 innings each game, this bullpen will average giving up 2-3 runs each game. The bullpen’s purpose is to stop the bleeding if a starter struggles or hold the game when a starter pitches well and gets tired. This bullpen not only puts salt in the wound, it rubs it in until you scream and beg for mercy. This has been a glaring void in the Devil Rays and the most direct cause for another losing season in Tampa.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
