Rays Leadoff Revival

Related Articles

Soriano, A Very Good Leadoff Hitter Let’s face it: Alfonso Soriano is good at this baseball business. And he’s good at this leading off stuff, too, no matter how many column inches Gordon Wittenmyer, Paul Sullivan and Barry Rozner dedicate to the idea he should be batting elsewhere. With tonight’s home run to lead off the...

Less Productive Leadoff Hitters Are Better? Someone named Kent Sterling in a place called Indianapolis at a radio station called “The Fan” has ideas about making the Cubs better, and they involve Jake Fox catching and then moving to left field, Alfonso Soriano playing second base, and some other things. His thoughts include: The really good...

Curtis Granderson, You’re Not A Leadoff Hitter! Curtis Granderson is on pace to hit 33 homeruns and strike out 139 times this season. His averages are .260/.344/.467. In 2008 he hit 22 homeruns and struck out 111 times. 2007 saw 26 and 141. And in 2006 he struck out 174 times. His career-high in stolen bases is...

Bartlett Finding His New Home Very Cozy It has been five games since Jason Bartlett had moved up in the leadoff spot in the batting order, and so far he has been killing the ball and taking his walks. Here are his counting numbers from that span. PA R H HR RBI BB SO 27 7 8...

"Leadoff Lastings" Manny has said that Lastings will leadoff claiming he’s a patient hitter who can steal bases.   While it’s nice to hear “patience” being rewarded, is what Manny says true? Is Lastings patient? There are kind of two unofficial judges of patience, your isolated On Base Percenage (isoOBP) and your Pitches per Plate...

Rays Try To Keep Winning Streak By Ending Another The Rays have a good five-game hitting streak going and need to end a 11-game one by the Rockies if they want to go to six games. The good news is that Jason Bartlett is back with the Rays and in the lineup. Jeff Niemann will start (and hit) for...

Half Way Rays - Tampa Bay Reaches Midway Point with More Questions Tampa Bay recovered from an extremely slow start to the season to pull over .500 in the second quarter. With 83 games in the books, the Rays have passed the midway point in 2009 and we begin to gear up for the second half of the season and hopefully a...

Stolen Bases Matter To The Rays The way to get stolen bases is to first get on base. Stealing first base is not possible, unless you think the hitter going for an intentional catcher’s interference is stealing first. The Rays are the best team in the stolen base department leading the Majors with 152, 41 higher...

Game Preview: Rays at Red Sox 5/08/09 The radar looks good for baseball in Boston but don’t be surprised to see a rain shower later in the game, possibly with a short rain delay. The Rays have won a season high three in a row and look to continue their winning ways in Boston, which they beat...

Rays Party Season Preview: Survey Results The last part and most interesting is a survey that I sent out to a several baseball bloggers that cover the Rays, AL teams, and just baseball in general. There were ten questions which asks the bloggers predictions for the Rays in 2009 and split into two parts. The results...