Kress wrote:The reality is that we keep pretty much all positions guessing at all times. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I heard on the radio that already this year we have now tied our record for most pitchers used in a season. No shocker there. But we have also set a new record for most different roster players used. Even though it's not much past mid-season, with the moves following this recent trade we beat our old record.... which we set in 2017. So basically we stepped up the RPMs on the revolving door we established last year.
All of those moving parts are a big part of what makes it hard to invest. You can root for the logo all you want, but it's hard to get all into "our team" when you can't pin down who is going to be on "our team" this weekend, much less next week or next month.
I bet most relatively-solid Rays fans could, just sitting here, do an admirable job of giving you our starting lineup for the team that went to the Series. Not the batting order, obviously, Joe moved that around too much, but who was in the field and where. Minus pitcher, I can readily think of 6 out of 8, and that was 10 years ago. The other two would likely be "oh yeah!" moments once I googled. Now ask fans to tell you the same thing for tonight's home game against Chicago. Personally, I can think of 3? Maybe 4, but I'm not even sure.
I went to the Saturday game and was thinking this same thing. I haven't watched any games this year but man, I didn't know anyone on our team.
Two questions: What's up with Carlos Gomez? He hit a double early in the game and I think did like a bazooka-type motion toward the dugout. And then he did the "flop" thing when he got hit by a pitch later. Does he just always mess around a lot?
Also, can someone provide some insight on Mallex Smith? He's from Tallahassee and I met him in Publix a few years ago. He was playing for the Braves at the time. I told my Braves fan friend and he was pretty high on him. How is he seen among Rays fans? Sidenote: One of the weirdest conversations I've ever witnessed. He was in the store with his dad. His dad runs into an old friend. They're catching up and doing the classic "is this Mallex? Last time I saw him, he was just a kid." His dad's like "oh yeah, he's playing baseball with the Braves now." to which the other dad says "oh, ok." I feel like if I ran into a friend when I'm older and his kid is playing major league baseball, I'd be like "holy ****, are you kidding?"