CHEESE & WHINE: K is for Kaz-tastrophy

RAYS:4
O's: 8


CHEESE:

• Evan Longoria. Dirtbag did it again, going yard for the 8th time this season (his league-leading 31st RBI), and putting the Rays on the board in the bottom of the 1st.
• Battling back. The Rays showed heart by battling back after their starting pitching let them down, yet again (more on that in a minute). Down 0-3 after mere minutes it looked like another one of "those" nights, but E-Lo's homer coupled with some nice small-ball style scoring had the Rays right back in it down the stretch.

WHINE:

• Scott Kazmir. When do we start panicking? This kid was once an ace. Once upon a time he struck out batters by the score with the greatest of ease. Once upon a time I could tell the difference between Scott Kazmir and Edwin Jackson... now, not so much. Two starts ago in Minnesota Kaz threw 12 consecutive balls to start the game, and walked the first 3 batters he faced. Last night he walked the first 2 batters before surrendering a 3-run homer to Roberts to start the game. Anyone else think that maybe Kid-K should start thinking about making a change in his pregame warm-ups? So far this season Kaz has walked 18 while striking out only 28 which gives him a K to BB ratio of only 1.5:1 (or if you prefer a BB to K ratio of 1:1.5). Last night's numbers show Kaz throwing 106 pitches, only 69 of which were strikes, he pitched 6 and 1/3 allowing 6 runs on 7 hits while walking 2 (in his defense, the only 2 walks were the 2 to open the game) and 7 K's (not bad).
• Joe Nelson. Nelson has had a fairly good season so far, so I'll cut him some slack, but last night he wasn't good. Joe worked 1 and 1/3 innings allowing 2 inherited runners to score, surrendering 4 hits, one of which was a homer, and walking 2.
• The Rays. Go ahead, guess the stat line for the team with runners in scoring position (RISP) last night. Nope. Try again. Okay, I'll tell ya... 1 for 16. Nothing like leaving some runs on the field, eh?
• Melvin Upton, Dioner Navarro. Combined BA for the season; .156. Combined BA last night; .000. The two combined to be 0 for 9 with 2 K's and 0 BB's. Why exactly does Maddon have Melvin hitting out of the lead-off spot right now?

CRACKERS:

• My prediction streak from my Eternal Optimism post came to an end after the disappointing loss to Baltimore last night.
• Carl Crawford's cleats from his record-breaking steals performance are headed to the baseball hall of fame.
• So far this season the Rays are 5-2 (.714) vs the Red Sox and 6-14 (.429) vs the rest of the league.