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He's a believer

Email|Link|Comments (1) Posted by Chad Finn, Globe Staff September 17, 2008 11:58 AM

The Rays' ticket sales may not suggest as much (last night's crowd of 32,079 was among their higher attendance figures of the season), but fans in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area are beginning to believe their baseball team is capable of special things.

Or at least they should, says Tampa Tribune columnist Joe Henderson, who is clearly impressed with what he saw last night in Tampa Bay's 2-1 win over the Red Sox.

In a piece titled "Rays Defy Explanation So Just Enjoy The Ride," Henderson writes:

This collection of Navarros, Bartletts, Penas and, lest we forget, Andy Sonnanstine, continues to build one of the best stories you've ever seen in the game of baseball. Seriously. They're way past the ol' "playing for respect" ploy. They're charging head-long toward sporting immortality.
They still lead the American League East. No one could have envisioned anything like this when this season started, but the Rays have answered every challenge and asked for more. They've done it with pitching, defense, and some of the timeliest stuff in the clutch you will ever see.

The Rays have spent the brunt of this season playing as if they have an unyielding belief in themselves. Maybe, as Henderson writes, "there really is something to this destiny thing," and maybe there is not.

But it is about time the Rays earned some converts locally. They've been worth the price of admission all season.

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1 comments so far...

In my opinion, it seemed to me that Francona left Masterson in for 2 reasons.

1. He had just enough confidence in him to believe he could help carry the team into extra innings because he's had some timely strikeouts and ground ball outs this season.

2. More importantly, it was a test for the playoffs for Masterson. If this was an actual playoff game you have to believe Tito would have lifted him for Manny Delcarmen or Hideki Okajima when the bases became loaded. He took the chance wondering how Masterson would handle himself for the meat of the Rays order with the game on the line in the 9th.

...the Red Sox have 2 more weeks to get into first place and the Rays will be on the road for most of it.

I think Francona has a plan for everything. He wanted to test Masterson, rest the bullpen a little bit, and also he did not want to show the Rays any notion of desperation. The thinking is If we don't play every card in order to win at all costs tonight, then we've given the Rays a bit of a false sense of confidence knowing that we'll have a little extra for them in the playoffs.

Who's with me? :-)

Posted by Greg September 17, 08 01:10 PM