0 comments by Joe Lucia on 3/20/2014
When you have a team like the Rays that is so well-run and so well-constructed, finding weaknesses is tough. However, digging a little deeper, maybe it’s not that hard. Tampa Bay’s two biggest weaknesses are rather obvious – their terrible stadium situation and as a result of that, their limited payroll. Think of the stadiums […]
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Near the end of the 2013 season, the Rays were faced with an interesting situation. The AL Wild Card race was extremely tight between Tampa Bay, Cleveland, and Texas. With three teams vying for two spots, the Rays needed to keep winning to ensure that their season would continue. They won the final game of […]
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Well folks, here we are at the second to last day of our season preview series, focusing on the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays won the second AL Wild Card in 2013, beating the Texas Rangers in Game 163 to break a tie and advance to Cleveland, where they beat the Indians to advance to […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia on 3/19/2014
An absolutely horrifying sight took place at Surprise Stadium on Wednesday night – Cincinnati Reds closer Aroldis Chapman was
[on the question of whether or not he’s bothered by trade rumors]
“Because I can’t be traded,” he said before leaving for Dunedin, Fla., to play the Blue Jays in a Grapefruit League game at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care which way it is tried to be twisted or said, or if it is exactly how it was said, or even if it was said — I can’t be traded. It doesn’t matter. If I was tradable, it may have weight because that means I could be moving soon. But I am not tradable, and so it doesn’t matter.”
[on the question of whether or not someone is slandering him]
“It might be a little late for that,” Rollins said. “That’s probably happened years ago. You’re persecuted long before the day you’re sentenced. You’re already found guilty or innocent by the people, so it’s a little late for that.
“Everybody wants to be loved or liked. But good or bad, right or wrong, people are going to love you, and some are going to hate you regardless. You can’t change their opinions to swing either way.”
-Jimmy Rollins to MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki
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0 comments by Joe Lucia
Only in Australia, folks. No word on whether or not the bowler (which I think is the correct term) bowled his next ball at Puig’s head for being disrespectful, but I’d imagine not (unless he was the Australian Kirk Gibson).
“I expressed that seven months in Port St. Lucie is a long time,” he said. “For me, I strongly felt that my best opportunity, and my motivation to come back quicker, stronger, work harder would be to be with the teammates. That’s kind of what I have always said. I have worked so hard to get to the big leagues and be with this team, it just felt like all of a sudden I was shooed to the back.”
[…]
“It’s just the fact that I have been not allowed to talk to anybody, and that every tweet or Instagram I send is, do not write,” Harvey said. “My locker — me and (Jeremy Hefner, also rehabbing) was basically in a closet. I didn’t think that was right. I don’t know exactly who was in charge of the situation. [“That was a decision made by clubhouse personnel,” GM Sandy Alderson later told me].
“I have worked so hard to get to the point where I was, and all of a sudden I get hurt, and it’s ‘you’ve got to stay in Florida,’” Harvey said. “‘You’ve got to disappear from New York, you’ve got to do this.’ I took pride in living in New York, and being a New Yorker. I live there all year round. It’s a place I love being.”
-Matt Harvey, speaking with Andy Martino of the New York Daily News
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0 comments by Joe Lucia
Shut down the Internet: pic.twitter.com/z2vlYQ9ko5 — Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) March 19, 2014
0 comments by Joe Lucia
We’re getting really close to the end of the line, folks. Today, AL East week reaches its midway point with our preview day highlighting the New York Yankees. The Yankees finished a disappointing third in the AL East in 2013, and they took care of that by spending nearly half a billion dollars this winter […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia on 3/18/2014
Orioles fans probably have a lot of questions about their team going into the 2014 season. Can they break through to the promised land once again? Will Buck Showalter’s magic continue for another season? Will the Orioles struggle without closer Jim Johnson in the fold? All of these questions are worthy of being asked, but […]
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There’s not too much to say about the Baltimore Orioles – their offseason activity was non-existent until late in the winter, when they made two of the best signings of any team by inking both Nelson Cruz and Ubaldo Jimenez to below market deals. But adding that pair of players to a young core that […]
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The news is not good for the 2013 NL East Champion Atlanta Braves and the 2013 AL West Champion Oakland Athletics – each team is losing one of their most valuable pitchers from last season to the same injury. Both Kris Medlen and Jarrod Parker will miss the 2014 season because of Tommy John surgery, […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia
Next up in our season preview series…the Baltimore Orioles, who followed up a playoff berth in 2012 with a respectable, yet disappointing, 85 win season in 2013. The Orioles had one of those offseasons that started off really slow, but blossomed later on as prices began to fall. Can Baltimore once again reach the […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia on 3/17/2014
Check out what we will wear in today's game for #StPatricksDay! #Mets pic.twitter.com/OEfvMcbc7G — New York Mets (@Mets) March 17, 2014
0 comments by Joe Lucia
Alright guys, we’ve entered the final week of season previews, and this week, we’ll be focusing on the best division in baseball – the American League East. The AL East jamboree begins today with the Toronto Blue Jays, who had a heavily hyped offseason in 2012 only to fall flat on their collective face in […]
