Rays Notes: Evan Longoria Begins Rehab, Kes Carter Returns, Shields Rumors

For the first time in over a month, Evan Longoria played in a rehab game, going 0 for 3 with a walk for the Triple-A Durham Bulls. Was it exciting? No. But he felt fine and that’s all that matters. Longo has 2 or 3 more rehab games still to play before he makes his long-awaited return to the Rays. Strange to see Longoria in a Bulls jersey, but he’ll be back in Tampa Bay before long.

Also returning to action was Rays 2011 supplemental first round pick Kes Carter, an outfielder, who played in his first game with Low-A Bowling Green since April 13th and went 1 for 2 with 2 walks and a 2-run home run in the Hot Rods’ 6-3 win.

One player who will not be back in the Rays organization in the near future but who we wish the best of luck to is second baseman Tyler Bortnick, who was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Ryan Roberts. Bortnick slammed a 2-run homer for the Triple-A Reno Aces for his first hit as a member of the D-Backs organization.

And we close by talking about the James Shields to the Angels rumor. A couple of interesting tweets on the topic on Thursday.

Nightengale’s tweet goes along with what we were talking about regarding Shields the other day, that the Angels and Rays may not necessarily match up so well for a trade. The Angels definitely still have interest in Shields, and we’ll have to see just how ambitious they are in their pursuit of him. The Angels and Rays begin a 3-game set in Anaheim tonight.