David Price has become the Vincent Van Gogh of pitching in Major League baseball. Like the beautiful Impressionist artist, David paints a masterpiece every time out. The latest in his epic collection this season was against the stellar Jon Lester, David “Big Papi” Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia and the Boston Red Sox last night.
Before 23,136 fans at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, who sounded like 50,000–it was electric in the Trop, David went eight innings, gave up eight hits to a pretty good hitting Red Sox team, allowed three earned runs, with no walks and 1o strikeouts. It wasn’t as totally dominating as he has been, but it was pretty darn good work of art by the maestro. David threw 114 pitches, 84 for strikes with 30 balls. Almost a 3:1 strike-ball ratio, which is outstanding; 2:1 is very good. Dave and the Rays beat the Sox, 6-4, behind stellar pitching and a key three-run double by Evan “Longo” Longoria in the bottom of the seventh. Longo has been struggling with the bat this year, only hitting .259 with his homers and RBIs down from the last several years, but I’m hoping that hit could really spark the heart and soul of the team, who along with David, are the Rays spiritual leaders. Despite the fact that Longo hasn’t hit like he usually does, he has played spectacular defense and has literally won games for us during this blazing hot stretch we’ve had with his incredible defense at third base.
David moved to 11-7 on the season and now has a 3.08 ERA. In his last six starts, David is 6-0 with a 1.31 ERA. Again, the strikeouts to walks numbers are off the charts. David has walked 21 and struck out 183 batters. That’s an 8.7:1 strikeout to walk ratio, which is Hall of Fame good. David has everything clicking pretty well last night. He gave up a homer to Shane Victorino in the top of the second and Big Papi singled home a run against him, but David battled and was dominant for a lot of the game. His fastball was 93-94, his curve was pretty special, and his cut fastball was outstanding. For new readers, his cut fastball moves in on right handers and away from left handers. Dave’s not only got great stuff, he has great location of his pitches. The hitters just can’t get good wood on his pitches if they can even hit them at all. He’s unhittable at times.
For those of you who are just starting to read the blog, David was the first player selected in the draft in 2007 out of Vanderbilt University, and had led our team to the SEC championship that year. We had the best team in the country that year, in my opinion, but, as can happen in the NCAA tournament in both baseball and basketball, we met up with a red hot Michigan team, which beat us in the NCAA regionals in Nashville. On that team we had David, Pedro Alvarez (third pick overall in the 2008 draft by the Pirates and starts for the Pirates), Mike Minor (Atlanta Braves starter right now) and Ryan Flaherty (started for the Orioles last night at third base). It was a special team. Maybe our most talented under Corbs, though I’m not going to take anything away from this “Dreams do come true!” team this season, which captured VU’s first ever national championship in a major sport. This group was totally special this year; they had hearts of champions, and were the national champions beating an outstanding Virginia team to win it all. Will never take anything away from this special group, but that 2007 group was pretty spectacular too.
Anyway, David is all time good right now. He’s looking like Sandy Koufax. For the younger readers, maybe the greatest left hander of all time, Koufax pitched in the 60’s for the LA Dodgers. Steve Carlton of the Phillies belongs on that list of leftys too. Carlton is a Hall of Famer along with Koufax. Carlton pitched in the 70’s. I’ll put David and the amazing Clayton Kershaw in that company. Kershaw, the 26-year old pitcher of the Dodgers, is Hall of Fame, world series type of dominant pitcher like David. The pitching this year is all time good stuff.
David and the Rays have now won eight in a row and 19 of their last 24 to move 7.5 back of the Baltimore Orioles in the AL East, and 4.5 back of the Yankees for the second wild card spot in the American League. David’s not getting traded before the deadline if the Rays can keep this up. The trading deadline for non-waiver players, meaning guys you can just trade straight up without any issues, is July 31st. David wants to be a Ray and the Rays want David to remain a Ray this season. I’m sure of that. If we can keep playing like this, David is not going anywhere. It’s just fun watching this team play. They play exciting baseball. They’re pitching superbly, they’re hitting extremely well, though they need to hit a little better with runners in scoring position, and they’re playing stellar defense. They’re just playing Tampa Bay Rays baseball which we’ve seen over the last six seasons. I picked the Rays to win the World Series this year over the St. Louis Cardinals, so hoping that prediction comes to fruition. More than that, I’m a passionate David Price/ Rays fan, so that, on top of my prediction, are the reasons for these Rays’ soliloquies. Thanks for bearing with me.
Sonny Gray (VU, 2011, World Series team) on the hill tonight for the Oakland A’s against the Texas Rangers.The A’s actually lost last night to the Rangers, 4-1. They fell to a paltry 63-39. They’re pretty special. Amazingly, they are only two games ahead of the strong Los Angeles Angels in the AL West. The Angels are at 61-41. So there is a lot of work left for this outstanding baseball team. Right now, I’d say the A’s and the Rays are the best two teams in baseball. It makes sense. Their two general managers, Billy Beane of Oakland and Andrew Friedman of the Rays (Executive Vice President), are the best in the business. Oakland is 25th out of 30 teams in team payroll for this season at $83.4 million, while the Rays are 28th @ $77.1 million. To put that in perspective, the LA Dodgers are the highest payroll team at $235.3 million, while the Yankees are second @ $203.8 million. That’s a huge disparity. You’ve got to be smart to have a low payroll– relatively speaking– and win like the A’s and the Rays do. You’ve got to balance the budget, being constantly aware of salaries and contracts, and you’ve got to be a supreme talent evaluator. It’s a tough job. There’s been a book written about Beane and his excellence, Moneyball, by the great Michael Lewis, and Friedman is right there with Beane in excellence. Friedman came from Wall Street with Rays owner Stu Sternberg, where both were highly successful investors. It’s a pretty amazing story in Tampa. The Miami Marlins and Houston Astros are 29th and 30th in payroll at $47 and $44 million, and both have struggled, though they’ve been pretty competitive this season actually, particularly the Marlins-ask the Braves– and Houston is building. It’s tough in these small market organizations to win with no salary cap in baseball, which allows teams like the Dodgers and Yankees, with their seemingly unlimited wealth, to buy a World Series title. So the savvy of guys like Beane and Friedman who have their teams in the thick of the the World Series hunt, is phenomenal really. Neal Huntington of the Pittsburgh Pirates is another who does a sensational job. The Pirates are 27th in payroll at $78 million and are three games back of first in the NL Central after making the playoffs last season. He’s really good too.
OK, back to Sonny. Sonny is 11-3 with a 2.72 ERA, with 45 walks and 116 strikeouts. Sonny’s been superb this season. Sonny’s curve ball is as good as anybody’s in baseball along with Clayton Kershaw, and his fastball is clocking at 94-95. Sonny’ll face Nick Tepesch of the Rangers tonight. Tepesch is 3-6 with a 4.87 ERA. Mike Minor (VU ’09) on the hill for the Braves tomorrow night against Eric Stults of the Padres. Mike now 3-6 with a 5.32 ERA with 26 walks and 80 strikeouts. He needs a good outing tomorrow night. Stults is 3-12 with a 5.00 ERA. The Braves lost to the Padres last night, 5-2. The Braves are now 55-48, 2.5 back of the Washington Nationals. The Rays are now 50-53. A month and a half ago, they were 18 games below .500 and written off.
Pedro Alvarez is day to day with a knee injury right now for the Pirates. The Bucs lost to the Colorado Rockies last night, 8-1. Pedro could be available tonight. The Pirates are 54-48, three back of the National League Central leading Milwaukee Brewers, which are at 58-46. The Cardinals are tied with the Bucs in second @ 54-48.
Interesting visitor on campus this weekend for football. 5.7 three star by Rivals and 92 four-star running back by 247 Ke’Shawn Vaughn (2015) from Pearl-Cohn High School in Nashville is on campus today. For those unfamiliar with the star system in recruiting rankings, 4-stars are potential first round NFL draft picks when they come out for the draft. Their talent is that superior. Ke’Shawn is 5’10”, 199 and has offers from Kentucky, Purdue, Illinois and Louisville among others. He is outstanding. Watched film of Ke’Shawn this morning. When he gets past the first line of defense, he’s gone. Beautiful running back. Looks like a 4.45, 40 guy . He’s tough too. I watched him run into the middle, get caught up in a logjam of about six tacklers, break out of it and take it to the house 60 yards. He’s totally special. Saw run after run of long distance, take it to the house- TDs. It was incredible really. Chris Smith of 247 sports has crystal balled Ke’Shawn 100% to VU. Ke’Shawn’s commit could be coming this weekend or early next week. Would be huge! Also, the number one player in the country, according to Rivals, for 2015, defensive end Byron Cowart, is on campus today as well. He’s got everybody after him. Florida, Oregon, Auburn and Alabama are after Byron hard, so it’ll be tough, but we have him on campus, so who knows? It could be a longshot, but we should always shoot for the stars. Corbs has proven we can do it in baseball, our previous guy who is in the same state as Pedro now, did well with recruiting in football, and Kevin has certainly recruited well in basketball. So we just need to go for it. Derek is such a great person, that players should gravitate to and want to come to VU, work under a terrific coaching staff, get a world class education, and make incredible friends for life. Derek runs a class outfit; maybe Byron will see that, and we’ll pull the upset. As Derek says, we’re not educating you for 4 years, we’re educating you for 40 years. Committed and trained.
Brandt -5 overall and -3 today through 13 holes at the RBC Canadian Open at Royal Montreal Golf Club. B has four birdies and a bogey today. Sounds like the putter is in good shape. I watched B yesterday afternoon and he was pretty good overall. Must be putting it together today. Brandt birdied No.’s two, three and four, all par fours, and No.6, a par five. Jim Furyk and Tim Petrovic are leading at -10. Furyk and Petro have not teed off yet. Looks like the Harmon effect is coming together for B. That was a very smart decision for Brandt to move to Butch Harmon as his coach. It was tough because he was close to Todd Anderson, but Brandt made a tough call and it’s going to work out well for him.
Luke List is -6, seven back of leader Zack Sucher, who is -13 at the Midwest Classic on the Nicklaus Course in Overland, Kansas. Luke tees off at 2:10 PM ET/1:10 PM CT today. Luke averaging 327 off the tee. The average for the tournament is 298. Luke’s large. His driving accuracy and putting, which are keys to Luke’s success, are at 60.71 (driving accuracy) and 1.625 putts per hole average. The tournament driving accuracy average is 66% and the putting average is 1.759. So his accuracy is better and his putting is good. Yesterday, in round two, Luke had eight birdies, one eagle, on the par five third hole, a bogey and one costly triple bogey on the par three fifth. If Luke can play like he did for most of the day yesterday and just avoid those big numbers, he can really do well this week.
Luke at No.117 on the 25 list. He needs a good week this week, but he’s just getting better and better. Jon Curran, who is no.5 on the 25, did not make the cut. Jon needs to get his game going again. But both players play every week. They are dedicated to making it onto the PGA tour. There are four regular season tournaments left before the Web.com playoffs start pitting the top 75 players on the Web.com tour and numbers 126-200 on the PGA tour competing for 25 spots on the PGA tour next year. There are 50 spots available, but the 25 top money winners on the Web.com tour at the end of the regular season are automatically in. So it’s basically 225 players (probably more like 250, there are some exemptions that get players in the playoffs) competing for 25 spots on the tour. Luke really needs to excel this weekend and in the upcoming weeks. He is playing next week in the Stonebrae Classic in Hayward, California ,which he should. He needs to play every tournament. Jon is taking the week off. At number five on the 25, Jon is basically in, but I’d like to see him play the last three events before the four tournament playoff begins. The 25 top money winners on the Web.com tour will play in the playoffs to get seeded for next year’s events on the PGA tour. The top guys in the playoffs get priority in the events next season. Not the majors, but the regular events. The 25 pretty much get to play in every regular season event. They would have to win this next season, which begins in October, to qualify for a major, the Masters being the first in April.
Will be in touch with any commit news, Sonny, Mike, Pedro, and Flaherty intel.