The Rays finished up their sweep of the Twins with a 5-3 win behind Chris Archer. There was a hairy moment. Once more, Grant Balfour was given a chance to save a game and again he was unable to get the job done. The Rays are now 7.5 games back in the American League East, and 6 games back in the wild card.
The Oakland A's are trying to trade their high-priced closer, Jim Johnson. The Rays also have a high-priced failed closer. To my knowledge, they are not trying to trade him.
FanGraphs finished up their trade value rankings. Evan Longoria, once the star of this series, has fallen to ninth.
David Laurila's roundup has a Don Zimmer story.
Jeff Zimmerman identifies the five pitches furthest outside of the zone that were called strikes. There's a James Loney appearance. Unsurprisingly, Loney was cool about it.
With David Price, Ben Zobrist, and Matt Joyce all potentially on the trading block, other teams' top prospects are of special interest to Rays fans. Justin Perline looks at the Los Angeles Dodgers' Joc Pederson.
Other Links
Fernando Rodney shot his arrow early. Albert Pujols and Mike Trout shot back.
Colby Lewis thinks its bad sportsmanship to bunt against the shift when your team is up 2-0.
Tom Tango with a short rant on why we use WAR.
Bryan Grosnick looks at pitcher WAR that combines their pitching, fielding, and hitting abilities. Of little interest to Rays (or many American League) fans, except that there's a blast from the past in the "pitchers who are worse when you include their fielding and hitting stats" table.