Been through the Bushmills…

Tony Tufano tries not to be bitter, but there are days, like Wednesday, when he struggles to get out of bed and he can’t help it.

Tufano, 73, is grateful to be alive after he was nearly killed last year on March 22 in North Port, when his motorcycle was struck by a Dodge Durango driven by former Rays right-handed pitcher Matt Bush. Bush, 27, baseball’s top overall pick in 2004, is in jail serving a 51-month sentence after pleading no contest in December to driving ...

Harold Reynolds: “This is what happens when the umps start calling the high strikes!”

Alex Cobb struck out 13 in fewer than five innings and Ryan Roberts and Ben Zobrist drove in two runs apiece to help the Tampa Bay Rays rally for a 6-3 victory over the San Diego Padres on Friday night.

Cobb became the first pitcher in major league history to fan that many batters and fail to make it through the fifth. The right-hander left after throwing 117 pitches. He recorded 12 of 14 outs on strikeouts ...

Jake just made it look easy. Odorizzi.

Jake Odorizzi and three Durham Bulls relief pitchers combined on an historic Sunday performance.

The four Durham pitchers combined to throw just the second no-hitter in the team’s International League history as the Bulls defeated the Pawtucket Red Sox 2-1 at McCoy Stadium.

Odorizzi (3-0) pitched the first seven innings, before Frank De Los Santos, Taylor Yates and Jeff Beliveau kept Pawtucket hitless over the final two innings despite allowing one ...

Hide your whiskey and lock up your women! Here comes the Hallion!

On Price’s next-to-last pitch, he thought he had struck out Dewayne Wise with a fastball, but Hallion called it a ball. Price, who appeared to take a step toward the first-base dugout, retired Wise on a comebacker on the next pitch.

“The 2-2 fastball to Dewayne Wise was a perfect pitch,” Price said. “I really don’t know why he swung at the next one since it was in the same spot. Then I walked off the mound. I was mad at myself ...

Joe Maddon: “I think the bunt is an overrated play.” (somebody wake up Kristina Akra…we have another half-baked show to do!)

Following another dreadful performance with runners in scoring position during a 2-1, 10-inning loss to the Boston Red Sox on Saturday, Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon wasn’t making excuses.

He wasn’t second-guessing himself, either.

“For that group of people out there that want guys to bunt all the time, you don’t know the outcome when you choose to do that,” Maddon ...

Hey, BDC...got any Ben Zobrist stories?

The metric, according to Fangraphs, is an “attempt by the sabermetric community to summarize a player’s total contributions to their team in one statistic.” Sean Forman, the founder of baseball-reference.com, has called it “a framework ... an estimate of a player’s overall value.”

WAR estimates the number of wins that a player provides over a minor league or waiver-wire “replacement,” taking into account offense, defense and ...

I am sorry for holding up the funny, offensive sign.

But does Shields Trust the Process™?

Evan Longoria… in this article from the Tampa Tribune... talks about how the team is all about clubhouse camaraderie and positive thinking and how everyone is on the same page with “The Rays Way.”  Part of why that is now? Because a couple of old holdovers from the pre-2008 Rays — the old Devil Rays –are gone:

“There was a lot of history with B.J. and Shields in this organization, and I think there were some things that were tough for them to get ...

Tropicana Field’s proximity to a vibrant waterfront makes it a natural fit for urban density, he said.

“It’s not very common to be able to put together that large a site for a master planned project anywhere in a desirable area like Florida,’’ Richey said. “It’s a special place.’‘

The Tampa Bay Rays, wanting a new stadium elsewhere, have begun to tout the Trop’s redevelopment potential as more valuable to the city than baseball.

The city “is sitting on an enormous piece of land in a rapidly ...

Racing in the Street and Babe Shadow.

A-listed B-streeters

Rays manager Joe Maddon is excited for the Sunday and Monday pregame performances of the B-Street Band, the long-running Bruce Springsteen, right, tribute group led by his childhood buddy Willie Forte. Maddon’s favorites of their covers? “I like their Jungleland, and their Spirit in the Night is pretty good,” he said. Though it has been suggested, Maddon will not be singing. “I can’t,” he said. “Plus, it’s pregame, so that’s another ...

House That Ruth Built ain’t to place for House Of David to pitch!

We’ve seen players like Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and now Kevin Youkilis join the Yankees and adhere to the club policy of no facial hair. With Rays ace David Price to hit the free agency market after the 2015 season—and, thus, very likely depart Tampa Bay—might he be inked to a megadeal in the Bronx?

Not likely.

Check out this portion of an article on FoxSports.com from Jon Paul Morosi, where Price is discussing how much he ...

As a result, the Rays won’t be able to sign anyone next year for more than $250,000 and probably won’t make any major international splashes until July 2 either because of the tax. Going well beyond the bonus pool is a curious move, but the Rays did pull in a considerable amount of talent, including arguably the two best 16-year-old pitchers on the market. Given that their 90-win season last year will give them one of the lower bonus pools for the 2013-14 signing period, which many scouts ...

Introducing “Touch Score”! (No, it’s not the number of girls Mike Connors uhh, dated)

Touch Score

I tried to find a way to sum the hitter side and batter side to give us an idea of how often a manager touches his line-up and bullpen. I took pinch hits plus pinch runs and divided it by innings per appearance to create TOUCH SCORE. This doesn’t TELL us anything at all, it’s just a means of gauging manager action.We all know that Joe Maddon is the master of all things baseball. He is a ...

Remembering the death of Danny Clyburn...one year later.

A year after his death, there’s just a faded tiny metal marker to indicate that is where Danny Clyburn Jr., who hit home runs in the major leagues, lies six feet under the red earth.

Danny Clyburn Sr., the father who mourns still in Lancaster – a widower who in his sixth decade of living tries to make ends meet as a custodian at a school so long after his son played in Major League Baseball – doesn’t have the money for a head ...

This has not been a fall for Scott Kazmir. It has been a plummet. A life-changing plunge from Mets superphenom to Rays ace to Angels reject.

To out of baseball.

At age 27.

In 2004, Kazmir was shipped away by the Mets in one of their most catastrophic deals ever. The flamethrowing lefty emerged into not just a Rays All-Star, but a pitcher who was historically good. But over the last few years, Kazmir’s fall has been inexplicable.

On Tuesday, though, he heads to Goodyear, Ariz., on a minor ...

A regular Gut McGraw…

Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg completed his tour of the region’s county commissions yesterday, following up Thursday’s “Don’t make Bud mad” performance with an appearance at the Pinellas County Commission in which he said he needs to draw 30,000 fans a year, and that can only happen if he gets a new stadium not in downtown St. Petersburg.

  Rays owner Stuart Sternberg told commissioners that fewer than 300 St. Pete residents have season-ticket ...

Circling the Issues

Last week, the Tampa Bay Times posted a Q and A on the Rays Stadium Saga with leading sports economist Andrew Zimbalist… after the Rays essentially echoed many of Zimbalist’s sentiments on Thursday, I made a discovery:

Andrew Zimbalist is currently paid as an MLB consultant.

Zimbalist confirmed in an email he has worked off-and-on for the league over the years (including now).  He said he has also worked for the player’s association, various teams, and numerous ...

Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg said Thursday that he wants to keep his team in the region, but “Major League Baseball at this point no longer believes in the Tampa Bay area.’‘

Five years of success on the field, coupled with five years of poor attendance, have taken their toll on his fellow owners, Sternberg said. Under baseball’s revenue sharing system, the Rays collect tens of millions of dollars from other teams, “and that gap is growing,’’ he said.

Sternberg’s comments came during ...

The Tampa Bay Rays reinforced their bullpen Thursday, reaching an agreement to re-sign free-agent right-hander Kyle Farnsworth, according to a major-league source.

Farnsworth, 36, will receive a guarantee of between $1.25 million and $1.5 million plus incentives, the source said. The deal is pending a physical.

The Rays know Farnsworth well – he pitched for them the past two seasons. He had a terrific year in 2011, posting a 2.18 ERA in 57 2/3 innings, but was sidelined for two months last ...

Least surprising news ever.

Former Rays outfielder Elijah Dukes was arrested Monday night, apparently for failing to appear in court on several drug and traffic charges, jail records show.

Dukes, 28, was arrested by Tampa police officers near 31st Avenue E and 20th Street N about 11:30 p.m.

Dukes faces a driving with a cancelled or revoked license charge. He was also arrested on several warrants for failure to appear in court for marijuana possession, tampering with physical evidence ...

Moore acquired former All-Star James Shields and fellow right-hander Wade Davis from Tampa Bay in a six-player deal Sunday that sent top prospects Wil Myers and Jake Odorizzi, along with two other minor leaguers, to the Rays.

Multiple media outlets have blasted the move, saying the Royals gave up too much.

I hope he didn’t read the BTF thread about it!

Run scoring, the Trop, and why did Evan Longoria have to get hurt and destroy the Rays offense last year.

If I am making it sound like the Rays play in one of the most pitcher-friendly, hitter-mean parks in the league, then good. They do. Since 2008, the Trop has consistently ranked among the top five ballparks in suppressing run scoring, so when they plate less than 700 runs in a season, it is not necessarily a red flag.

7:40PM EST December 10. 2012 - Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore is furious Monday afternoon, livid at the accusations, and trying to keep a calm demeanor on the telephone.

He pulls off the Royals’ biggest trade in two decades, giving them a shot at their first playoff berth since 1985, and he’s read that he made the blockbuster deal simply to save his job.

“To me, that’s insulting,’’ Moore tells USA TODAY Sports. “That’s very insulting. Very, very insulting.

“I don’t get too ...

Dayton Moore is trying to avoid being McClellan. He’s got the farm system built up, the army trained and organized. He’s good at that. Now he’s taking the field of battle and deploying those forces. That’s admirable.

Of course, what’s the next part of the story? Is Moore going to turn into an aggressive, brilliant field commander like Ulysses S. Grant or William Tecumseh Sherman? Will he be cautious but effective like George Gordon Meade? Mercurial and erratic like Joe Hooker? Or ...

The Tampa Bay Rays executed the biggest trade in team history Sunday night, sending pitchers James Shields and Wade Davis to the Kansas City Royals for four minor league players, including outfielder Wil Myers, the Royals’ top prospect.

The Rays also received right-handed pitcher Jake Odorizzi, left-handed pitcher Mike Montgomery and third baseman Patrick Leonard.

KC Star: Royals get Shields, Davis from Rays for Myers, Odorizzi, two others