Things go from bad to worse for the Rays as the Red Sox complete a sweep of Tampa Bay, taking the night-cap 4-0. Texas now needs a sweep of the Mariners to keep pace with Boston.
The Rays losing streak goes to 11, and they continue to show no offense whatsoever. How much of this gets blamed on Joe Maddon? The Rays just went through a seventeen game stretch against playoff teams, and lost 14 of them. Maybe Joe should have been less concerned with the clothing theme of the trip and more concerned with figuring out a way to win. His bullpen moves didn’t work, and his lineups didn’t work. There were only three games in this stretch in which they scored more than four runs, and they only scored four once. This was a horrible stretch for what should be a playoff contender.
Update: The comments to this post seem to indicate some Rays fans aren’t very happy with Joe Maddon.
The Rays only have 3 players who currently are having decent offense years.With Pena hurt,Upton,Navarrno & Burrell having lousy years where is the offense supposed to come from?The league found that Zobrist struggled with curveballs,so he has had a slow 2nd half.They are going to have to find help in the off season.Time to move Upton?
@fred: Isn’t it the job of the manager to find out what’s wrong with young players like Upton and Navarro and figure out a way to correct it? The should have gotten better wth Iwamura back.
What I found strange about Maddons lineups is that before Pena got hurt he would have Pat Burrell hitting ahead of Longoria, whom he had batting 6th. Burrell might get a hit or an XBH ahead of Longoria, but he can not run worth a darn. So a Longorai hit with Burrell on 2nd does not score Burrell, or a XBH with Burrell on 1B. Stupid. Not to mention the fewer AB’s for one of your best hitters.
Then the other thing I noticed the other night in NY, Posada is coming up as a PH against a LHP, and Maddon brings in a RHP (Balfour) who is having an off year, but more important, this allows Posada to hit from the left side, IN YANKEE STADIUM. Sure enough, a HR that wins the game. Nobody in their right mind wants Posada hitting from the left side there when you could have him as a RHB.
As a Red Sox fan, after seeing the Rays 6 games over the past 10 days, I can say this looks like a completely different team than we faced in August and earlier.
I suspect the team just quit after the Kazmir trade, and losing Pena obviously hurt. Kind of like how the Red Sox quit when the Yankees got Abreu in 2006 at the trading deadline and the Red Sox FO did nothing. Players want to think the FO is prepared to do what needs to be done to win today, and when they get a hint of “cheap” from the FO in a pennant race, they take it badly. The team makes more off the playoffs than the players, so why should the players care if the FO doesn’t. This recent stretch by the Rays is going to cost them big time in revenues in 2010.