B.J. loafs; B.J. sits

Cleveland pitcher Edward Mujica fell to his knees and almost flopped in front of the mound as he tried to field a come-backer from B.J. Upton in the eighth inning Tuesday night.

And Upton lollygagged to first base.

You know that makes him?

A lollygagger.

And you know what happens to lollygagger’s on Joe Maddon’s watch? They sit.

Upton was benched Wednesday against Celveland, his punishment for not running out a grounder to the pitcher. With a little hustle he might have actually beaten Mujica’s throw. After all, the pitcher was throwing from his knees.

It was a bold statement from Maddon, who really needed Upton in a lineup Wednesday that was more JV than varsity.

Ben Zobrist made his major league debut in center field. Willy Aybar, cramps and all, was back at shortstop. The corner outfield was manned by Eric Hinske in left and Gabe Gross in right.

This isn’t the time to be playing games with the lineup Rays three-games up on second-place Boston, but Maddon felt he needed to make a point.

Personally, I think Upton takes plays off, both in the outfield and at the plate.

I don’t think I’m alone.

What bothered Maddon more than Upton dogging it was Maddon ripped into the team after a win in Kansas City on July 26 because he felt saw a little too much dogging going on.

And less than two weeks later Upton lollygags to first?

We’re in the thick of the pennant race now. No time to be playing games.

And that’s why Maddon had to bench Upton.

Postseason history favors Rays

Despite what happens before Thursday’s 4 p.m. trade deadline, the Rays appear in great shape to make the postseason.

Why? Because during the Wild Card Era, 73 percent of the teams that were in first place at the trade deadline reached the postseason, and the Rays have a three-game lead over the second-place Boston Red Sox.

The legwork was done by Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star.

Read it here:

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/727769.html

Rays interested in Pittsburgh's Bay

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting the Rays and Pirates are involved in trade talks for outfielder Jason Bay, who would give the Rays the right-handed, power-hitting right fielder they seek.

The trade deadline is 4 p.m. Thursday.

Bay is batting .284 with 22 home runs and 62 RBIs. He is in the third year of a four-year contract that will pay him $7.5 million next season, which means the Rays should be able to afford him next season, as well.

Bay is a two-time All-Star and former rookie of the year.

After slumping last season, Bay is putting up pretty good numbers this year, and those numbers are even better when compared with the numbers generated by any Ray not named Evan Longoria.

Rays manager Joe Maddon told reporters in Toronto before Wednesday's game there is a "50-50" chance the Rays could swing a trade by Thursday's deadline.

A pair of all-stars: Navarro and Kaz

So it’s Navie and Kaz going to the All-Star Game. Congrats. Both are deserving.

Dioner Navarro turned his career around during the second half of last season and is now the best defensive catcher and the second-best offensive catcher in the American League.

Scott Kazmir shrugged off a strained left elbow suffered in spring training, joined the team one month into the season and has been pretty solid.

Andy Sonnanstine has more wins and James Shields has been more consistent, but the way Kazmir pitched in May started the Rays climb to the best record in baseball.

We can whine all we want about having just two players from the best team in baseball on the American League All-Star team, but with the way the Rays win, having two is almost enough.

Personally, I would have liked to have seen J.P. Howell land on the team. Take him out of the bullpen and who knows what happens to this team.

But, as manager Joe Maddon said, it’s a different bus driver every night, a fact that bodes well for the second half of the season. The Rays aren’t relying on two or three players who are having career-years.

Navarro helps drive bus every night when he catches with the way he handles the pitching staff and the way he know handles himself at the plate.

There are few pitchers better than Kazmir during those nights when his fastball is blazing and his command is sharp.

Ripken and Eck dig Longo

The guys who cover baseball for TBS have noticed the Rays.

Harold Reynolds, Cal Ripken and Dennis Eckersley voted Evan Longoria their first half American League rookie of the year. Chip Carey split his vote between Longo and Jacoby Ellsbury.

Buck Martinez and Eckersley voted Joe Maddon the top AL manager through the first half of the season.

Can’t say I disagree with their picks.

A view of the Rays from the Boston press

The Rays ended the first half of the season Sunday with the best record in baseball, not to mention the best record in team history after 81 games. They have certainly gotten everyone’s attention, including the second place Boston Red Sox, who begin a three-game series tonight at Tropicana Field.

Here’s what they’re saying in the Boston papers

From Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe:

The assumption, from the time the MLB computers spat out the 2008 schedule last summer, was that the Red Sox would be playing a meaningful series this week.

But no one, outside of Joe Maddon's immediate family and closest friends, dreamed it would come at the Trop. That visit to the Bronx over the Fourth? Hey, the fireworks begin tonight in St. Pete, where the Sox try to wrest first place away from the Tampa Bay Rays, young, gifted, and still amped from the last time they played - and fought - the Sox.

With Boston falling, 3-2, to the Astros yesterday afternoon, a tie-breaking pinch single by former Sox second baseman Mark Loretta the latest blow to Hideki Okajima's increasingly fragile psyche, the Sox find themselves a half-game in arrears of the Rays, 4-3 winners in Pittsburgh.

The Rays, of course, never have been in first place this deep into any of their previous 10 seasons. No team in the American League East other than the Yankees or Red Sox have been in first as late as July since the 2000 season, when the Blue Jays still held the top spot on July 14 before fading to third.

Sox third baseman Mike Lowell, mindful that the Rays swept the Sox on their last visit to the Trop in April, professed not to be surprised that the Rays are where they are.

"They've played damn good baseball for three months," said Lowell, who came to the plate against Astros closer Jose Valverde with a chance to duplicate his ninth-inning home run from Saturday night, but instead tapped into a force play, Kevin Youkilis then lining out to leave the Sox with a total of 13 stranded runners yesterday. "I think that's a pretty good track record. This is a big series for us. We want to play well. But I don't think it's a be-all or end-all."

But will it be that for the Rays?

"It's a big series," Lowell reiterated. "The media are going to want to hype it up. It's a series that whoever wins will be in first place at the end of it, and that's important to us."

From Jeff Horrigan of the Boston Herald:

For most of their first 10 major league seasons, the Tampa Bay Rays basically played the role of the hapless Washington Generals to the Red Sox vastly-superior Harlem Globetrotters.

When they head to Tropicana Field tonight to open a three-game series, however, it will be the Sox looking up in the standings, attempting to avoid having a figurative bucket of confetti thrown in their face by the American League’s top team.

Hideki Okajima surrendered a run-scoring, pinch-hit single to Mark Loretta with two outs in the eighth inning yesterday at Minute Maid Park, resulting in a 3-2 loss to the Houston Astros. That knocked the Sox into second place in the AL East, a half-game behind Tampa Bay, which downed Pittsburgh, 4-3.

The sagging Sox, who dropped the last two games of the season’s final interleague series in the Astros’ final at-bat, fell out of first place for the first time since June 3, when they also trailed the Rays by a half-game.

“This series right now is the biggest series for that franchise,” Julio Lugo, a former Ray, said.

From Rob Bradford of the Boston Herald:

The fight of the Red Sox young 2008 lives begins today, and it has nothing to do about bench-clearing brawls, retaliation or fiery salvos thrown from one clubhouse to another.
As much as it might hurt, you might want to avert your attention from donnybrook-related matters for the moment.

The starting gun for the race for first place in the American League East is being fired at Tropicana Field tonight and, despite the perception of many New Englanders on their way to St. Petersburg, Fla., nobody will be living the life of the longshot this time around.

Flash-in-the-pan status has left the Rays’ anything-but-morbid building. Look at today’s standings for further proof.

“I think it will be about two teams that are in first place that are battling, and that’s what it needs to be about,” Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to play the game and move on. I think the media will take it as that, two teams that are battling for first-place once the games start going. . . . Whatever happens, happens. It will all play out.”

The final words of Papelbon’s analysis suggest he hasn’t totally let go of the tension between the Rays and the Sox that has continued to linger since June 5. But the owner of the most pointed comments of the past few weeks also has come to understand the task at hand.

“What I’ve said has been said, whoop-dee-do,” he said. “What I’ve said has been said. We’ve got to move on and play the games.” …

The Red Sox’ tact has been, and will continue to be, that of a team with permanent membership into the “been there, done that” club. When you live with at least 18 of these must-win scenarios built into the schedule thanks to the presence of those Yankees, pre-Fourth of July showdowns don’t elicit extra hours of advance scouting meetings.

“To be totally honest, and I know it sounds cliche, but it’s just another series,” Papelbon said. “Yeah, we have extracurricular stuff going on, but it is just another series.”

If the Red Sox approached it any other way, that would truly be news. (See Papelbon’s post-fight comments.)

Yet, while the Sox can afford to worry about themselves, their fans might want to pay close attention to the baseball players dressed in blue and white who aren’t punching, yelling or poking. It might just be the one pinstripe-free team worth following.

“It will definitely be strange for me to see it,” said Red Sox catcher Kevin Cash, a former Ray. “For the people there, it will be second to none. When I was there we had lost around 11 in a row at this time of year. It was a grind in June when it’s supposed to be a grind in August and September. I guess things have changed.”

Do they still play the blues in Chicago?

Songwriter Steve Goodman died two weeks before the Cubs won the division title in 1984, denying him the chance to see his beloved team win a title and also preventing him from witnessing another of their legendary choke jobs.

Though he left this earth too soon, he was 36 when he died of leukemia, Goodman left us with the “City of New Orleans” and “Go, Cubs, Go.” He also wrote “A Dying Cub Fan’s last Request,” which is, for my money, the best song written about a major league baseball team.

With the Cubs at the Trop for three games with the Rays this week, I’ve found myself listening to Goodman’s ode to the long and suffering Cubs fans a few times this week on a CD I have of baseball songs.

Here’s a link to a YouTube video of Goodman playing the song with Wrigley Field as the backdrop. Here are also the lyrics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xBxZGQ1dJk

“A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request”

By the shore's of old Lake Michigan
Where the "hawk wind" blows so cold
An old Cub fan lay dying
In his midnight hour that tolled
Round his bed, his friends had all gathered
They knew his time was short
And on his head they put this bright blue cap
From his all-time favorite sport

He told them, "Its late and its getting dark in here"
And I know its time to go
But before I leave the line-upBoys,
there's just one thing I'd like to know

Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League


Told his friends "You know the law of averages says:
Anything will happen that can
"That's what it says"
But the last time the Cubs won a National League pennant
Was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan"

The Cubs made me a criminal
Sent me down a wayward path
They stole my youth from me(that's the truth)
I'd forsake my teachers
To go sit in the bleachers
In flagrant truancy
and then one thing led to another
and soon I'd discovered alcohol, gambling, dope
football, hockey, lacrosse, tennis
But what do you expect,
When you raise up a young boy's hopes
And then just crush 'em like so many paper beer cups.
Year after year after year
after year, after year, after year, after year, after year
'Til those hopes are just so much popcorn
for the pigeons beneath the 'L' tracks to eat

He said, "You know I'll never see Wrigley Field, anymore before my eternal rest
So if you have your pencils and your score cards ready,
and I'll read you my last request

He said, "Give me a double header funeral in Wrigley Field
On some sunny weekend day (no lights)
Have the organ play the "National Anthem"
and then a little 'na, na, na, na, hey hey, hey, Goodbye'

Make six bullpen pitchers, carry my coffin
and six ground keepers clear my path
Have the umpires bark me out at every baseI
n all their holy wrath

Its a beautiful day for a funeral,
Hey Ernie lets play two!
Somebody go get Jack Brickhouse to come back,
and conduct just one more interview

Have the Cubbies run right out into the middle of the field,
Have Keith Moreland drop a routine fly
Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a frosty malt
And I'll be ready to die

Build a big fire on home plate out of your Louisville Sluggers baseball bats,
And toss my coffin in
Let my ashes blow in a beautiful snow
From the prevailing 30 mile an hour southwest wind
When my last remains go flying over the left-field wall
Will bid the bleacher bums ad?eu
And I will come to my final resting place,
out on Waveland Avenue

The dying man's friends told him to cut it out
They said stop it that's an awful shame
He whispered, "Don't Cry, we'll meet by and by
near the Heavenly Hall of Fame

He said, "I've got season's tickets to watch the Angels now,
So its just what I'm going to do
He said, "but you the living, you're stuck here with the Cubs,
So its me that feels sorry for you!"

And he said, "Ahh Play, play that lonesome losers tune,
That's the one I like the best"
And he closed his eyes, and slipped away
What we got is the Dying Cub Fan's Last Request
And here it is

Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League