Swept A-Ray

I have been silent, but rest assured the travesty this weekend has not escaped my notice.

"Wasn't it the game you went to that started their losing streak?" pointed out a co-worker accusingly today. While the correlation is weak, I have to admit it's there.

But I'd sooner put the blame on injuries and illness coming home to roost (bench players and fill-ins like Sean Casey and Jed Lowrie aren't used to, and some might argue nor are they intended to be, working this regularly) than on my attendance (if it makes anyone feel any better, I'll be there tomorrow night, too, so maybe it'll work like a double-negative and restore things to order.)

The encouraging thing is that our starting pitching has remained strong, even as the offense short-circuited. Both starters, yesterday and Saturday, pitched well enough to win--especially Clay Buccholz, whose performance this weekend after having struggled his last two starts I take as one of the silver linings from the series.

It's also worth remembering that this team is about 95% the same as last year's team, which also showed some serious streakiness, particularly where the offense was concerned. I believe this had me referring to the 07 squad as 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' by August. It's a bit more alarming to see such extremes in April, but it's not much different from the cycles the team went through last season. And we all know how that turned out.

P.S. Has anybody else noticed that in addition to removing the word 'Devil' from their team name, the Rays have also adopted a very clerical new purple, gold and white color scheme, complete with what looks like a gold Star of Bethlehem inside the 'R' on the front of the jersey? Was there really such strong Christian opposition to the Devil Rays based on their name? Will this uniform change really put more Bible-thumpin' butts in seats down in Tampa Bay?

Comments

[maxwell horse]

What was most infuriating about the losing streak was that the Sox "should have" easily won three of them. And maybe even a fourth. Thet got three really good pitching performances (Masterson, Beckett, Clay) and the rest of the team failed in some way to result in losses.

I will say this about the Devil Rays, I really do find their mascot hilarious, especially in regards to the ongoing soap opera involving Remy and Wally, although there seemed to be minimal levels of that stuff during this series.

[Dawn]

Living in the Tampa area (can you say awesome seats at great prices to see the Sox?? yay!), all I can tell you about the new uniforms is that a) it's navy, not purple ;-), b) they appear to have copied the Mariners uniforms or at least that is what came immediately to mind when they unveiled them and c) that is supposed to be a sunshine. All of which makes me laugh because really the sea rays are much scarier than the sunshine. (Not counting the risk of skin cancer of course.) I am endlessly amused. I call them the Tampa Bay Sunbeams now. And I firmly believe that they should turn their mascot into a puppy, project a rainbow up onto the roof of the dome & after the games they win, release butterflie. It's just too bad I can't poke fun at them for wearing vests anymore. =P