Zobrist has left #Rays because grandmother died, may miss Monday too

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) May 5, 2013

It’s terrible that Zobrist’s grandmother died and he certainly bares no blame for leaving the team. However, without him the Rays journey just becomes even tougher. Here’s their lineup for today’s game.

1. Desmond Jennings, CF
2. Matthew Joyce, RF
3. Evan Longoria, 3B
4. James Loney, 1B
5. Kelly Johnson, LF
6. Ryan Roberts, 2B
7. Jose Lobaton, C
8. Sean Rodriguez, SS
9. Alex Cobb, P

Without Zobrist, the Rays lineup goes from passable to decrepit. Kelly Johnson batting fifth? Ryan Roberts batting sixth, against a right-handed hitter no less? And without Zobrist, the Rays lose plenty of versatility and didn’t even have time to replace him on the roster as Zobrist’s departure was so sudden. With Yunel Escobar out after getting hit by a pitch, Rodriguez is the only shortstop left on the Rays roster–if he goes down, Ryan Roberts would probably have to play out of position at shortstop (he played there in the minors leagues, last in 2010). Evan Longoria also has one major league game, a start, at shortstop. Rodriguez probably won’t get hurt, but except in the most desperate situation, the Rays can’t pinch-hit for him or risk exposing their defense. The situation is so dire that Joe Maddon said that he will use pitchers to pinch-run and pinch-hit if he has to. How will the Rays make it through this game?

The Rays need a big performance from Alex Cobb today. He was pitching great until the 6th inning of his last start, and he needs to find a way to get back to that. The top of the lineup has to step up, with Evan Longoria being the key to the entire time, and look for players like Johnson, Roberts, and Rodriguez to be especially aggressive on the basepaths if they can get on as the Rays do whatever they can to manufacture runs. This is only a two-day thing with Zobrist being gone. But with the season looking bad enough already, the Rays need to find a way to stay afloat and win games, and Zobrist’s absence for a couple days only makes it tougher.

“At the end of last season we all thought that Ben did a nice job and we all wanted to stay with that,” Maddon said. “Sean’s doing a nice job in the other role we put him in, so I don’t want to mess that up now.”

Ben Zobrist has become known as one of the most selfless players in baseball given the way he has blossomed into one of the top hitters in baseball yet has been willing to move around the field like a utility player. Most of the star players in baseball could probably play multiple positions if they tried, but their all-around title gives them a sense of entitlement and their teams certainly won’t argue that deserve to stay at the position where they’re most comfortable. Zobrist is the exact opposite, being a player who had been a decent shortstop prospect for the Astros and Rays but fell apart after arriving in the major leagues and had to adjust to a utility role. Only after he arrived in the major leagues did Zobrist establish himself as a topflight hitter, and by then he had developed his incredible versatility and it would have been a waste for him not to utilize it. But there has to be a limit to that, right? Here’s a quote from Zobrist about his readiness to play shortstop.

“When I went there (Wednesday) I didn’t feel terribly uncomfortable,” Zobrist said. “I expect it to feel pretty normal.”

Usually that would be a place where the player would say “I feel great there” or something along those lines. Instead, Zobrist “didn’t feel terribly uncomfortable.” That doesn’t raise a red flag, but at the same time, are the Rays taking Zobrist out of his comfort zone and Zobrist is simply too selfless to resist? Escobar’s injury was only going to last a few days. Why not put Sean Rodriguez at shortstop just for that brief stretch of time and keep Zobrist splitting time between second base and right field?

The past two years, Sean Rodriguez’s Ultimate Zone Rating has been -2.4 in 768.2 defensive innings. That’s not so bad at all, but for a player who the Rays can’t trust to hit, if he’s slightly below-average defensively it just makes an iffy situation worse. Watching Rodriguez defensively (and looking at the components of his UZR score and where his errors have come), he moves extremely well but has just decent hands and doesn’t have the best arm. He shines at second base and has looked good this season at first base, but shortstop just isn’t the best position for him given his defensive skill-set. But given that the Rays aren’t even trusting him to play there for just a few days, does that mean that the Rays have given up on Rodriguez playing shortstop for any extended period of time?

As we mentioned above, Rodriguez has gotten off to a great to 2013, and given that he hasn’t hit at all the last two years, the Rays might as well do what they can to keep his rhythm going and see if this can last at least to some extent moving forward. And that doesn’t just have to do with Rodriguez’s defensive position, but also his playing time considerations. It has helped Rodriguez that 26 of his 39 plate appearances have come against left-handed pitching as a right-handed hitter. If Rodriguez were to become the Rays’ everyday shortstop even for a few days, he would face more right-handed pitching, putting him in position to fail and possibly frustrating him enough that his great run of late could come to a quick and unceremonious end. And if the Rays were to keep sitting Rodriguez against right-handed pitching, they would have to put Zobrist at shortstop when he was on the bench anyway, so the simplest solution was going to be just playing Zobrist at shortstop on an everyday basis.

The situation created by this Yunel Escobar injury has prompted several interesting questions regarding the Rays and how they will utilize Ben Zobrist and Sean Rodriguez moving forward. But the bottom line here is that Rodriguez not playing shortstop has little to do with his capability defensively at the position and more with his hot start at the plate and Zobrist playing shortstop is less of a statement on him being almost too much of a team player and more because the Rays knows he would be fine there and are trying to keep a lesser player in Rodriguez comfortable. Just like it had been the case with Zobrist, it will be up to Rodriguez’s performance at the plate to determine whether Rodriguez will ever get a crack at a starting role again. Until then, though, the Rays are best off keeping Rodriguez right where he is and seeing what he can do.

Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The first four and a half innings were a total pitchers’ duel, with Alex Cobb and Andy Pettitte matching each other pitch for pitch. Pettitte was getting more strikeouts, but Cobb was keeping his pitch count down and keeping runners off the basepaths.

Pettitte showed signs of a higher pitch count in the fifth, when he would start off the inning by hitting Jose Molina in the foot. This would be followed up by a Kelly Johnson single to right which would slip under the glove of Brennan Boesch and roll further toward the wall. But with Molina as the lead runner, the error did not score a run, but rather left runners at second and third with no outs.

This hasn’t been a great scenario for the Rays so far this season, and Desmond Jennings and Ryan Roberts would prove why, quickly tallying two strikeouts and killing the chances for scoring on an out. That brought up Ben Zobrist with two out, and he doubles to right-centerfield, scoring both runners.

That 2-0 lead would turn into a 3-0 lead when Sean Rodriguez hit one out over the farthest fence from homeplate, barely clearing the extended fence just to the left of straight-away center. This would be the first batter of Pettitte’s final inning, as the veteran hurler would finish with 6 innings of 7 hit baseball with 3 runs, 2 of them earned. He walked 1, struck out 10, and had only 68 strikes over 105 pitches.

Cobb would continue to deal, ending the eighth inning with 99 pitches, not allowing a runner to pass second base all night. He would start off the ninth with an out, and then give up a single on a seeing eye grounder, and give way to Fernando Rodney.

Rodney would then give up another single, and then a ground ball to advance both runners into scoring position. He would then face Travis Hafner with two outs and get him to pop out to short left to close out the victory.

The Rays would get another base hit from an improving Yunel Escobar in the bottom of the sixth, but he would leave the game due to tightness in his hamstring. It was announced he will be day-to-day.

Evan Longoria failed to reach base safely, and ended his streak that had lasted since late last season. Nevertheless, that was just a small negative in a big Rays win. The Rays look to continue their hot play of late as they head to Chicago to take on the White Sox at 8:10 PM on Thursday night.