Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 18, 2007
Success in Orlando

The Devil Rays wanted to develop a fan base in Orlando, and with three exciting wins they likely accomplished that. Delmon Young homered in the tenth to give Tampa Bay an 8-6 win over the Rangers. The Devil Rays swept the series, with two of the wins of the walk off variety. Young was especially helped by the move to the ballpark:

And, of course, the Rays owe a debt to Young, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 draft. He arrived in the Orlando area mired in a bona fide slump. He had gotten just six hits in his previous 52 at-bats to drop his average to a season-low .222.

But in three games at Disney, he had eight RBIs and upped his average to .244.

Young, who doesn't like to talk about himself very much, was downright modest when asked what he was trying to do in the bottom of the 10th, facing Willie Eyre with one out and Brendan Harris on base.

"Get a hit, like I always try to do," Young said.

Did he intend to hit the ball more often the opposite way, to right field, as Maddon said?

"Nope," Young said. "I just fixed my swing."

One thing the DRays need to do is get more exposure in the Orlando media. Look at the sports home page of the Sentinel. Baseball is pretty far over to the right on the menu of sports. National sports news is more important. Somehow, the Devil Rays management needs to get the newspaper to recognize them as the local team, on par with the magic to help build a fan base.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:46 AM | Series | TrackBack (0)
Comments

The Devil Rays problem lies not only in their lack of regional support, but more importantly in their lack of local support. I recently wrote an article about this. http://devilraysbaseball.blogspot.com

Posted by: Ryan at May 18, 2007 01:28 PM

LOL wow...the menu at the Orlando sports page has baseball AFTER golf, adventure, autos, recruiting, national, and even high school!! I guess baseball's not one of the 4 major sports in Orlando. That's sad.

Posted by: Devon Young at May 18, 2007 01:45 PM

The truth is that the Rays need to be competitive. Too much young talent on that team for them to be in the position they are in. New venues are a nice little band-aid, but the only thing that will bring people to the park is winning, or at least an honest attempt to win. The Trop is kinda like playing baseball in a dark hallway, but until the franchise makes an effort to be competitive, I don't see how they can justify building a new park in TB.

Posted by: glenn at May 19, 2007 12:12 PM
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