Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Opening Night lineup

Biscuits manager Billy Gardner has his lineup ready for Thursday's Opening Night against the West Tenn Diamond Jaxx. Don't use ink if you fill out your scorecard now because it is subject to change.

Fernando Perez, cf
Josh Asanovich, 2b
Reid Brignac, ss
Evan Longoria, 3b
Chris Nowak, 1b
Shaun Cumberland, rf
John Jaso, dh
Josh Arhart, c
Jason Pridie, lf

Chris Seddon, lhp

The Jaxx won't arrive until Thursday afternoon, but they have scheduled left-hander Justin Thomas to be the starting pitcher.

New Rays site

The Devil Rays have launched a Spanish-language Web site, raysbeisbol.com.

Necisito mejorar mi espanol. Yo hablo muy poco.
(I need to work on my Spanish. I speak very little.)

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Numerical roster

1. Chris Mason, rhp
2. Shaun Cumberland, of
4. Fernando Perez, of
6. Evan Longoria, 3b
7. Billy Gardner, manager
8. Reid Brignac, ss
9. Brooks Badeaux, if
10. Patrick Breen, of
11. Hector Torres, hitting coach
12. Josh Asanovich, 2b
15. Josh Arhart, c
16. Neil Allen, pitching coach
18. Jason Pridie, of
23. Nick DeBarr, rhp
24. Chris Seddon, lhp
25. Evan Meek, rhp
27. Brian Henderson, lhp
28. Jarod Matthews, rhp
29. Jeremy Flanagan, rhp
30. Gabriel Martinez, if
31. Richard De Los Santos, rhp
32. Mike Prochaska, lhp
33. James Houser, lhp
35. Derek Feldkamp, rhp
36. Brett Wayne, rhp
37. John Jaso, c
38. Chris Nowak, 1b
39. Dale Thayer, rhp

The annual Meet the Team event is 6 p.m. Wednesday at Eastdale Mall.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Last-day releases

There are two players listed on the latest minor-league roster who aren't on a travel squad or ticketed for extended spring training: catcher Yamid Haad and infielder Hee-Seop Choi.

Disclaimer

Below are the travel squads that were posted at the Rays' minor-league complex this morning. Obviously, they can change. Some of those guys won't be on the active roster for the season openers. Officially, those guys are on the short-season Hudson Valley roster, but the players call it the "phantom DL."

Each team's bus leaves in a few hours after a pair of intrasquad games finish and everybody packs up. Each bus shouldn't be too crowded. The Rays decided to allow the players to drive their own cars, if they so chose and signed a waiver. That gets the players off the hook for shipping their cars, which is an expensive proposition. Last year, the fine for not riding the bus was less than the shipping cost for a car. A lot of them took the fine.