CHEESE & WHINE: El Gato es Muy Excellente

RAYS: 8
A's: 2



CHEESE:

• Carlos Pena. Pena took over the MLB lead for HR's by crushing not one but two homers in Oakland last night. I've seen a lot of power hitters in my day, but none that had such a propensity toward hitting the ball so ever-lovin' high in the air. The lift he gets with that upper-cut swing is ridiculous. El Gato finished the night 2-5 with 4 RBI.
• Gabe Gross. Gabe got his first start in a week and took full advantage. Gross caught a routine fly ball in RF then sent a laser to the plate to catch Sweeney trying to tag and score to end the 1st inning. He immediately followed that up by blasting a solo homer in the 2nd. Gabe finished the night 2-3 with 2 BB and 1 RBI.
• Scott Kazmir. Kid K had yet another shaky start, but somehow (with a little help form his friends) was able to pitch 6 scoreless innings, allowing only 2 hits while issuing 3 walks and recording the W.
• Jason Bartlett. JB had another great night offensively, going 4-5 from the plate while hitting out of the 9-hole, and moving his BA to .390.
• Taking advantage of runners. The Rays were 4-12 with RISP, and given how things have been as of late, I'll take that.

WHINE:

• Joe Nelson. Nelson worked 2/3 of an inning and managed to record a balk and give up 2 hits, one of which was a solo homerun to Hannahan (Nelson did manage to record 2 K's though).
• The Rays. The team left 11 runners on base.
• Pat the Patient. Burrell was 0-4 from the plate.
• Navi. Navarro has been lackluster both defensively and offensively. Last night offered 1 or 2 more instances where Navi was sleeping on his feet behind the plate just like The Rocket Scientist alluded to yesterday. Offensively, Navi was 1-5 at the plate with 1 RBI, and somehow managed to pull-off a stolen base.
• Pacific Time Zone. I can't handle anymore late games. My wife and children are begging me to get some sleep, and my boss is not happy with my lack of production (okay, so I'm my own boss, but I can still be disappointed by the lack of production). Thank God that the next 2 are afternoon games.

CRACKERS:

• The Rays are scoring 6.2 more runs per game in games that they win versus games they lose. (8.4 runs/win, 2.2 runs/loss).
• Toronto put up 14 runs on the White Sox last night. In 4 games against the White Sox last week the Rays managed a total of 13 runs.