Hope and Frustration Against the Blue Jays

We continued to learn about the Rays’ superstars-in-training during last weekend’s series against Toronto.

In the bottom of the second yesterday, Delmon Young roped Roy Halladay’s first pitch to left for a leadoff double. Young has been criticized for being too eager with the first pitch, and responded to that defiantly the other day within this Marc Topkin piece. His remarkable talent often allows him to compensate for the lack of selectivity, but with a career on-base percentage, including the minors, of .336, one wonders if there will be an adjustment period in the majors, and if Young will respond positively.

Elijah Dukes provided a patient contrast in the same inning. With Young on third, Dukes found himself in a 1-2 hole against Halladay. Easy, the ace must have thought, I’ll just get this rookie to chase. Doc wasted three pitches away; Dukes sat on all of them, drawing a mature walk. With an on-base percentage of .401 in Durham last season, Dukes has already shown exceptional patience for a player his age. Questions about his volatile temperament do not seem to extend to behavior at the plate.

Now for Kazmir, the third phenom in the spotlight yesterday. Mixing a diving slider and deceptive two-seamer with his standard mid-nineties fastball, Kazmir was lights-out in stretches. At one point, he set a team record by striking out six consecutive batters. He was exciting, he was focused, but he couldn’t win the game.

With two on and two out in the fifth, Reed Johnson homered, putting the Jays forever ahead and inalterably tainting Kazmir’s early dominance. Despite adding pitches, the Rays’ would-be ace still has a problem sealing games, keeping pitch counts down, avoiding deadly mistakes. He continues to develop; we continue to watch.

Overall, the Blue Jays series was rich in hope and frustration for Rays fans. The comeback on Friday night, spearheaded by Young and Upton, provided a thrilling home opener. The offense and energy showed up for every game, and Kazmir and James Shields pitched well. One wonders, though, if the bullpen will be every bit as problematic this year as it was in 2006.

Over in Yankeeland, Brian Cashman has been busy converting a talent surplus into a stockpile of young power arms. In the Randy Johnson and Gary Sheffield trades, the Yankees obtained enough pitching to ease concerns about the bullpen and rotation. Some of those guys will stick and help the Yankees in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings. The question remains for Andrew Friedman: who do you trade in an effort to do the same?

Last season, the Rays lost a league-record sixty games which they had led at some point. Think about that number, and imagine what their record might have been with a more consistent bullpen. As a team, they are further along than many think, but that bullpen…

Some good Rays reading from this morning:

Eduardo Encina writes of the Rays' efforts to turn around last year's abysmal road performance.

Edwin Jackson makes his case to remain the fifth starter tonight in Texas, as Mark Lancaster writes. This is exactly what I was talking about above: Friedman turned Danys Baez into a young power arm in Jackson before last season. Some arms work out; others don't, but you have to stockpile them. Jackson is still a work-in-progress, and it is no coincidence that Maddon has paired him with Josh Paul for his big night. Paul was instrumental in helping to develop Kazmir, Shields and Seth McClung last year.

Thanks to Patrick Kennedy at D-Rays Bay, an excellent Rays blog, for linking us.

Casey Fossum's Old-School Style

Casey Fossum, making his season debut tonight, is not a large man. At 6’1 and one-hundred sixty pounds, he blends in more with the writers in a locker room than with his teammates. It is interesting, then, that he can sometimes slip a fastball past the big-time hitters in the AL East.

How does he compete in a league full of giants? By recognizing who he is and adjusting his motion accordingly. Fossum understood early in life that he would never have the body of a power pitcher. So, with the help of his father, he developed a windup reminiscent of a time when nearly everyone was his size.

“I have kind of a throwback delivery,” he explains. “My dad tried to model me after Sandy Koufax.” Fossum, with his father, spent his formative years scrutinizing footage of pitchers from the forties, fifties, and sixties. They watched film of Koufax and other classic pitchers in the HBO series When it Was a Game. He emerged from his research with a large, looping delivery that supplies the power that his body does not.

“Most pitchers now are much bigger and stronger than they were back in the day. For them, the least amount of movement that they can get in their windup, the more they can get of the strike zone. So nowadays, people are cutting down a lot [in their motion].

“But for me, with my size, to generate the velocity that I need, I have to be all over the place, twisting and turning. My delivery is different because there is so much going on.”

Tonight, Fossum will try to regain that delivery, after injuries shortened his season last year. If he can hold down some innings at the back end of that rotation, he’ll be a valuable asset as the Rays wait for Durham to start churning out more arms.

Dukes' Big Week in New York

It was a moving sight on Monday when Elijah Dukes, rounding first, pumped his fist as his home run cleared the center field wall. One can imagine his sense of triumph. Amy Nelson wrote this piece a few days back; she was prescient, as Dukes yesterday became the first player in team history to homer in the first two games of his career. Dukes seems to have reemerged as a formidable talent.

Last year, while buzz continued to swirl around Young and Upton, the fans and media seemed to quietly give up on Dukes, writing him off as a talented tragedy. The talent, without a trace of tragedy, was on display during this frigid set of games at Yankee Stadium.

Just a question about the roster, long-term: if Dukes is for real, should the Rays move Baldelli for pitching? Other than Crawford, whose is still improving, Rocco seems to me the one for whom the team could obtain the most value.