Rays go to Six in Rotation

Thanks to the rained out game in Detroit on May 25th the Rays have decided to give Andy Sonnanstine one more shot at the rotation. Tonight’s return by Alex Cobb should be considered an audition — apparently the Rays haven’t gotten enough of Sonnanstine and his low-to-mid 80’s fastball and feel like he should get yet another chance to put a spike in the heart of Rays fans. Ok, so that’s not really the case, but I think I’d rather see Troy Percival starting right now than Sonnanstine.

Still, the Rays want to go into the Boston series with David Price and James Shields, and in order to do so they needed to make some alterations to the rotation. So Cobb starts tonite and Sonnanstine gets the nod in Friday’s game against Baltimore. After the makeup game the Rays will have to make a decision, as they’ll return to a five man rotation.

In Sonnanstine’s defense — and considering how I’ve railed against him lately that may come as a shock, he didn’t pitch too horribly bad last night. Not for the gas can he’s become. Sonny just can’t fool hitters; he’s allowed five home runs in his last three starts. I suppose it shows just how protective the Rays are with their young talent that they’d sacrifice games now to win games in the future.

Game Update: Alex Cobb made it through six and a third innings, with four k’s and for walks. He allowed three earned runs on seven hits. In the first inning he walked Ian Kinsler to open the game, then tried to pick him off at first. Felipe Lopez, not exactly experienced at 1B, waved as the ball went by him and Kinsler made it to third. Give Cobb some credit there as he could easily have melted, but instead he punched out SS Andres Blanco, survived another ill-conceived throw to 3b that Evan Longoria bailed him out on, then struck out Michael Young. Adrian Beltre grounded out to end the inning.

I like his heart. He did a good job, and certainly better than Sonny. Here’s hoping the Rays agree once the dust settles.