Rays Winter Ball Recap: Joey Terdoslavich Homers to Ignite Este

While the Rays were off making big trades several of their current and former players will still playing games. Joey Terdoslavich, in particular, was having a good time.

Dominican Winter League: Toros del Este 6, Tigres del Licey 5

After Licey got ahead 1-0, Joey Terdoslavich got the scoring started for the Toros, drilling his first home run of the DWL season. He walked and scored Este’s 5th run later in the game. Terdoslavich has now played in 9 games for the Toros, and the results have been good: he has a .353/.410/.647 line with the homer, 2 triples, and 3 doubles in 39 plate appearances. Mayo Acosta also had a strong game for the Toros, going 2 for 4 for the second straight game and throwing out the only runner who attempted to steal against him. One last former Rays minor leaguer appeared in the game: Ramon Ortiz, who allowed just a hit and a walk in 2 innings but allowed a pair of unearned runs. Ortiz improbably pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays this year, and he hopes to pitch well this winter to entice another team to give him a minor league deal. Finally, we will talk about a non-Ray but an interesting player nevertheless: Jose Valverde. Valverde was perfect in the 9th to record his 8th save for Este, and he now has a 2.45 ERA in 11 appearances and 11 innings pitched. He even has a solid 9-3 strikeout to walk ratio. However, his command has continues to falter as his groundout to airout ratio is just 0.33, and expect big league teams to stay away.

Aguilas Cibaenas 5, Estrellas de Oriente 4

Hector Luna had a strong game for Cibaenas, going 3 for 4 with two RBI singles, and a walk. Luna has gotten off to a sluggish starter, only finding a hit in every other game, but he has shown excellent plate discipline, walking 6 times against 5 strikeouts, and if Tuesday’s game was any indication, more hits are bound to come.