RaysUp - Congrats to Lake Mary winning World Series & Rays had a tough journey West.

Lake Mary Little League World Championship:

The Lake Mary team from Florida has won the Little League World Series, overcoming both U.S. and international teams. If you missed the action, it’s worth catching a replay.

Rays Road Trip Recap:

The Tampa Bay Rays return home after a challenging 10-game road trip on the East Coast.

Series breakdown:

Oakland A’s: Split the 4-game series.

LA Dodgers: Lost the series, taking 1 out of 3 games.

Seattle Mariners: Took 1 out of 3 games.

Notable performances included Junior Caminero’s first home run of the season against the Dodgers and Randy Arozarena’s two home runs during the Mariners series.

Key Games and Moments:

Dodgers Series:

Junior Caminero hit a 100 mph pitch from Bobby Miller for his first home run.

Chris Morell’s double and two-run homer highlighted the Rays' offense.

Shohei Ohtani’s grand slam and 40th home run of the season.

A recap of the Dodgers’ golden bobblehead giveaway featuring Ohtani and his dog, Decoy.

Mariners Series:

Managerial change with Scott Servais being replaced by Dan Wilson.

Randy Arozarena’s resurgence against his former team, hitting two home runs.

Logan Gilbert’s standout performance with 10 strikeouts in 6 innings
Jeffrey Springs had 9 strikeouts in 10 innings
Rays pitching cumulative 19 strikeouts

Lake Mary Little League - World Series winners

• Congratulations to SS/2B/CF: Chase Anderson, 12 of Sanford
• P/OF: Christopher Chikodroff, 11, of Orlando
• OF/P/3B: Lathan Norton, 12, of Sanford
• 2B/3B: Hunter Alexander, 12, of Sanford
• SS/3B/P: JJ Feliciano, 12, Longwood
• OF/P: Jacob Bibaud, 12, Lake Mary, FL
• CF/P: Liam Morrisey, 12, Sanford
• P/OF: Luis Calo, 12, Sanford
• C/P/3B: Landon Bono, 12, Lake Mary
• UTIL: Garrett Rohozen, 12, Sanford
• 1B: DeMarcos Mieses, 11, Sanford
• 1B/C/P: Teraj Alexander, 12, Sanford

Rays’ Return to The Trop:

The Rays are back home at Tropicana Field for a 7-game homestand.

Upcoming opponents include the Padres and Twins, crucial matchups as the Rays are currently 6 games back in the AL Wild Card race with 29 games left in the season.

Final Thoughts: With the Rays’ season winding down, every game counts. Mark shares his optimism, reflecting Mat’s belief that a winning streak could still put the Rays back in the Wild Card race.

You can find Mat on Twitter x.com @Mat_Germain_   

 Mark can be found on Twitter x.com  @TheBaseballBiz & at  http://www.baseballbizondeck.com

Subscribe, follow and rate the show. Thank you.

BaseballBiz is on iheartradio, Stitcher, Apple, and Spotify

Special thanks to XTaKeRuX for the music “Rocking Forward"
Notes in part from ChatGPT

Transcript

254 RaysUp BaseballBiz transcript

Sorry guys, I'm running about a little late about a day late in a dollar short here for baseball biz And we're going to take a look at a few things today, including the uh, like mary baseball team who just achieved World championship of the little league. And if you didn't see that happening, William sport, you missed out on a lot.

So it's probably still out there a few different places where you can watch it. 

Welcome to baseball biz on deck. I am Mark Corbett, your host and Oh, it's only me this week. I'll tell you what I've read a little late. I. Had a bit of a bug earlier this week. I think all the kids going back to school may have had something to do with that. And anyway, what we're going to talk about today is another raise up edition of baseball biz on deck and it's been busy.

The good news is. After 10 games on the road, the Tampa Bay Rays are returning tonight, Friday night,  to the Troup.  It has been,  uh, an interesting last 10 games on the East Coast.  Let's take a look at some of this, shall we?  Let's see, hmm,  10 games.  We started out with the Oakland A's with 4 games. Why not split in that series? 

Then, what did we do after that? We, uh, went ahead and we set up with the Dodgers. Now, and we'll talk a little bit about the Dodgers and Ohtani in a moment, but  we only took one of three there, so we lost that series.  And then we were a little tired, so we said, what the heck, let's go on up to Seattle, we'll play the Mariners for a few games, and visit some old friends.

We took one out of three there. So there you go, boys and girls. It was four out of 10 games that the Rays walked away with.  Let's try to find some of the excitement of this past week.  I'll say, and one thing is the Lake Mary, the Lake Mary literally up there, just north of Orlando,  they won the little league world series this past week and not talk about just against all the USA teams, but also against the international team as well. 

So what did this last week look like? Okay, I'm not going to dig into the Oakland A's game. I'm sure a lot of you may have enjoyed it, but  I didn't. And it's so far back in history, I don't even want to think about it anymore. But we will talk about what happened with some of the games with the Dodgers and a couple of games with the Mariners as well. 

So if we look back at, you know, one, we're in their territory, and that means something. But also think about this team. They are ranked fifth as far as Ben, when it comes to payroll across all of MLB. And I got a question. I think maybe it's a little higher than that, but that's some of the numbers I was pulling up from sports track.

If we look, who's on that team, I mean, you got to show, Hey, Oh, it's Adi, you got Freddie Freeman, you got Mookie Betts and there's Will Smith and many more I'm not even thinking of at the moment, but we'll talk about what happened because on Friday,  when we play the Dodgers,  We took a loss three to seven  and, you know, it was an interesting game.

It started out with. The Dodgers putting Bobby Miller on, on the mound. And you know what?  Junior Caminero still mostly a freshly minted  rookie, I guess, if you will. He played a little bit last year, but not probably not a much enough to matter. Junior came up.  And he hit his first home run for the season. 

And if you could hear the crack of that bat,  oh man,  he would. So when Bobby Miller threw that ball across the plate,  junior Caminero hit that at a, and that was 100 miles per hour when that ball was coming at him and bam, it went out. It was amazing to watch.  Wow. Maybe that's why that was loud.  Then Tyler Alexander was pitching for the Raves. 

in the bottom half of the first.  So who's he facing? Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman.  One, two, three. Boom. End of inning.  Things are looking pretty good, you know.  And then by the time we get to the third inning, let's talk about a little more fun with the Rays.  Junior Cameron Merrill has a double.  Chris Morrell, after him, hits a two run home run, bringing Junior in, and man, that was probably most, most of the excitement we were going to enjoy  for that particular game. 

The fifth inning, at the bottom of the fifth, it was a little different. Kike Hernandez comes up, and he hits a three run home run against the Rays.  And the bottom of the ninth, there's a hit by pitch by Will Smith. Oh, gosh, the bases are loaded,  and who comes up with those bases loaded?  None other than Shohei Ohtani.

And this is going to be one momentous moment because as Shohei comes up on this particular hit, it is a home run, it is a grand slam, it is a walk off, and it is  His 40th home run of the year and he matched that up with the 40 stolen bases. He said for this year and it is amazing. You know, he's only 1 of a few who've got the 4040 and if we look across, uh, see, historically, however, you know, recently, I guess you could say 2023.

You had a junior get it. Um, see Sano in 2006.  A-Rod in 1948. 1998. Boy, yeah, I'm aging that man Quickly. Barry Bonds in 1996 and Jose Conseco in 1988  after seeing all that Shohei Ohtanie achieved.  At the plate,  it begs the question,  will the Dodgers ever put him back on the mound? I mean, why would you, wouldn't you want this guy every game that you could have your DH there, have him just killing it every time.

Uh, I mean, he's already now, I think since this game and this was a week ago, I know Ohtani has hit at least two more home runs,  you know, and at home run in and of itself has a little story. I mean, the ball is going all the way out there and there's Siri.  Siri's out there in the outfield and he's reaching in and the ball just goes up.

It's way too high for him. It kind of hits up there in the first row of the seats  and a couple of fans kind of  go at the ball. Neither one really catch it and it bobbles its way back down to the field.  Hosey, Siri picks up this ball,  this 40 40 ball, this walk off ball. Home run with Shohei Ohtani, and he casually pitches it back into the stands, probably thinking he's giving the fan a souvenir, and what a souvenir it would be.

So, Jose may not have actually realized the, uh, oh, the legendary moment of that  ball, but the fans did, and they scrambled for it, and they scrambled for it, and one guy put it underneath his foot to hide it from others, but, uh,  they were never able to get someone up to authenticate the ball.  So, that fan, with that ball, with that 40 40 ball, he now has a baseball worth,  I don't know, 24.

95. Is that what it cost the Dicks?  Well, that kind of gives you an idea of those momentous moments. Of course, Ohtani being the great guy he is, simply said, well,  yeah, you know, it'd have been nice, I guess, if he had that ball, but he, he wasn't really interested in that so much as what he was able to do for that team.

Another note on Ohtani while we're here. Think about this,  you know, you want to commemorate, uh, having a great player like that on your team. So they gave out a bobblehead earlier this year.  Well,  also this, this particular week are they gave out another bobblehead on Ohtani and it is a golden bobblehead with a decoy and you say a decoy, Mark, what are you talking about?

Ohtani is a golden, like a golden statue of Ohtani  and decoy is this little dog.  So there they are together and boy, did fans come out for that.  But not in so many cases, it's, uh, it was limited edition. So you had to get there early and, you know, you want to feel the stadiums. That's the way to do it. Of course, if you're the Dodgers, you should be feeling the stadium anyway.

I think it was about a mid week game during that. So decoy and Ohtani, they took the field and decoy got the ceremonial. First pitch that day, it looked pretty daggone good. He ran it right up there to the catchers and that was his owner, Mr. Ohtani himself. So, you know, can you ever say enough about Ohtani on a raise up show?

Probably, and I probably just did, but there you have it.  Let's jump to the Saturday game of that series where Kershaw was up  and he pitched for seven innings,  five strikeouts.  And, let's see, five earned runs, yeah.  And at the same time, Taj Bradley was pitching for the Rays. He's pitched for six innings, he had five strikeouts,  and five earned runs. 

Well,  after that, it was going to see what would happen.  The Rays did indeed win this game.  And,  after losing the first one of this series, they came back.  And a lot of the activity came from Morrel, Christopher Morrel. He had a double bringing in Caballero and then let's see tail Hernandez in the bottom of the fourth.

He brought in Mookie Betts with a two run home run. And then the ninth inning junior, Mr. Caminero himself hit a home run, a two run home run.  And the Rays took away the win with nine to eight score over the Dodgers. 

Well, guys, as long as you're out there on the West coast, you might, and you've already been there with the A's and you. Played with the Dodgers and we're not gonna go into the Sunday game, but I will say during this week also, Brandon Lower hit five, his record 500 hits, he recorded  his 500th hits. So kudos to you, Mr.

Brandon.  So what happened with the Mariners?  So we go up to the Mariners and we play three games there.  We took one of the three.  And we started out Monday with a five to two win, which is always great. And that started out, let's see, with the top of the second inning, Josh Lowe had a home run. Uh, if we look at the Mariners, Polanco had a home run. 

But you know, the thing I wanted to give a little bit of attention to, when we came to visit, there was already some hubbub going on. There was always a, already a brouhaha.  And that came in the form of their manager, Scott Servais.  Anyway, what happened is he had a moving day. They had basically, Moved him out.

It was over. Sorry, Scott, your season really stinks and the last several games nothing really great's been happening. So we're going to have to replace you. So, you know, you figure they call him into the office and they have a candid conversation and the pleasantries are exchanged or not so much. And then, uh, then Mr.

Servais would go on his way, but it wasn't that simple.  No, no, no, no,  no. He didn't find out from that meeting. He had a meeting scheduled that morning and before he, while he's getting ready for his day, I guess he sees on the news, something from Ken Rosenthal with the athletic. So this is 90 minutes before his meeting with the president of baseball operations, uh, Jerry Dipoto, Dipoto, Dipoto, well. 

And lo and behold, he says, guess what?  Mr. Rosenthal mentions that Scott no longer has a job. Well, that kind of hurts  one that you lose your job and one, the whole world knows about it before you've been told officially about it.  This happens more times than I care to admit. And it just kind of, well, it stinks.

People sucks on a lemon,  but what happened after that? Did they hire Pedro Griffo? No, they did not.  They did hire Jerry Dipoto. No,  they did hire  Dan Wilson. No, he was a former catcher with the Mariners and, and now he's their full time manager. I mean, they said not just for this season.  Far moving forward.

That's what the front office said. So who is Dan Wilson? He had been a catcher with the Mariners River about 12 of his 14 years in Major League Baseball.  And he also led the Mariners to four wins in their last six games.  Now, as a manager, he also has led the Mariners to four wins in their last six games, and that gives him a winning percentage of 667. 

Yeah, that's a small sampling. Six games. Come on, people. But guess what? So far there have been no ejections  for Dan Wilson yet. So we'll see how that plays out. But yeah, we got to the Mariners up here in Seattle. We're going to see some old friends up there. One of course, one we've all missed, and that's Mr. Randy Land himself, Randy Arozarena.  And how did he agree to raise this during the series? He greeted us with two home runs. Oh gosh.  Out of 28 games as a Marin, Randy has only hit a total of three home runs. So he must have been saving these up for us.  You know, so there's probably less than Seattle expected, but I'm sure they were glad to see him come  alive during this series.

So after this series, Seattle had, and took those two games,  it kept them just above the Rays in the wildcard race. We'll talk about that in a minute.  You know, I mean, Randy,  he was arrayed from 2020 to 2024.  And during the series, he had five hits,  four RBIs, three runs, and two home runs.  He's increased his on base percentage from 318 to 385. 

And I would say he is certainly a welcome addition to the Mariners this past week.  Another old friend we saw while we visited the Mariners, that was JT Chargois.  And during this series with the Rays, he had seven at bats and one hit a double. So Luke did not have showing as Brandy did.  Another gentleman, former Ray, we saw was right hand pitcher JT Shaqua.

He was with the Rays back in 2022, went to Miami with the Marlins and the Marlins, I guess, sent him to Seattle. I can't remember what the deal was on that one.  Oshawa pitched one in against the Rays during the series and gave up one home run, two hits, and two earned runs. Ouch.  Sorry JT.  And then there's another guy.

One who I continue to watch. Because he's from Florida. He's not from the Rays. But he's, he's a pitching for, he's a pitching for the Mariners now. So this Florida boy is from Winter Park, Florida. It's about a 25 minute drive to Lake Mary, Florida, where the international little league world series champs will be celebrating their victory today. 

And anyway, this gentleman's name is Logan Gilbert.  I first, I guess, just heard about Logan when I was working with the folks down there at the Florida armory while, where he was training, I heard about it. And what I did find out is that, uh,  let's see,  I'll read you a few notes here from the Mariners game notes. 

Says that Logan Gilbert here ranks among American League pitching leaders in nearly every major category. And that includes whip. That means quality starts. Uh, he's first in innings pitched. Uh, let's see what else is ERA. He's fourth, but 3. 21 and his strikeouts. He's sixth with 162.  

Logan is also tied for the MLB lead with five starts of seven plus scoreless innings this season. He shares that honor with Logan Webb from the Giants.  Logan's five starts of seven plus scoreless innings already tied for the most in a season by a Mariners pitcher since Felix Hernandez recorded five such starts during the 2015  season. 

Uh, you know, Mariners pitcher has recorded six plus starts of seven plus scoreless innings in a season since. Sashi Wakuma's seven starts in  2013.  Logan is chasing a club record, eight such starts, and that's shared by Hernandez of 2009 and Jamie Moyer from 2002.  Well, think about this. I mean,  he's already at  five starts with that achievement. 

And will Logan be able to do it? He'll probably have five or six more starts this season. We'll see how it plays out.  And that game was the second game we played with the, uh,  the second game. The series was actually played where we faced Logan Gilbert and he had a hell of a performance.  While we took the game three to two,  Logan Gilbert just shined.

I mean,  in six innings, he had 10 strikeouts.  Now, Jeffrey Springs for the raise,  let's see, in five innings, he had nine strikeouts.  So both of these guys are killer. But on top of that. On top of that,  the Rays delivered 17 strikeouts.  Now that's across all the pitchers. And of course, none of those were from Jeffrey Springs.

Part of that win, see, came after Logan Gilbert stepped down from the mound. It was in the seventh.  And there was a two run home run,  there was a two run homer by none other than Jose Siri.  In the eighth, Yanni Diaz had his 11th home run.  So, it was quite a day. 17 strikeouts by the raised pitchers is a phenomenal number. 

And while I did watch most of, or some of the Wednesday game, it was interesting to see toward the very beginning.  Junior Caminero in the first inning has a triple, I mean a triple, and that's always exciting. Later on, we would see Josh Lowe with a solo home run. Not enough about that.  Let's quit talking about the past and let's talk about what's happening this week.

The Rays are back in town, they're back in the drop. And they will be facing whom? They'll be facing, I think, the Padres and the Twins.  Let's get a real scope on that. Shall we?  You know, with those East coast games, I always have a hard time staying up watching the game. So what a surprise. I found myself watching a lot of the minor league teams for the Rays.

And you'd hear names that you don't hear recently with the Rays lineup, like you would hear. Let's see, Carson Mead, uh, Jonathan Aranda were just a few of the ones that popped up. Uh,  let's see who else, uh, Magnum, yeah. So the Rays are six games back. The Rays, you know, will continue to persevere. There's no doubt.

You know, when Mat's on the show, You know, he's, he's been more optimistic than I am some days, but that's great. And one thing he keeps saying, you know, is if we get on a winning streak and the others continue to lose, well, you know, we've got a chance and I don't know at what point that's no longer a viable opportunity because the Rays, like I said, there are six games back in the wildcard race and there's 29 games remaining in the season. 

With the Rays returning to the trop for a seven game homestand. What's that look like? Well,  three games with the Padres who are third in the NL West. And four games with the Twins, who are currently six games, the Twins are currently six games ahead of the Rays in the American League wildcard race.  So that's who they're going to be facing in the seven game homestand. 

Well, you know, and then they're not going to get a break. They got to get back on the road. They've got 10 more games on the road. They're going to be facing leaders in each of their divisions. You're going to be facing the Oreos, the Phillies, and the Guardians. You know, they're no slouches either. None of these teams.

Orioles have got 77 wins at the time recording this. And you know, they're, they're not leading the A east. They're just like one game behind the Yankees who hold the a Easts and America League top spot. The Phillies with 78 wins. They're leading National League East by five games above the Braves and the guardians with 76 wins.

Hold the top spot by one game above the Royals. In the AL central.  So let's take a little closer. Look at those wild card woes that moment. Again, this may be a little dated to make maybe the Yankees and Orioles traded spots. But at this moment, the Yankees are leading and, uh, the, uh, well, you're going to have the division leaders.

You got the Yankees, the Cleveland guardians in the Houston Astros. The Houston Astros are in that group with 71 wins. Now what's interesting is at this time the three teams that are listed as AL wildcard. You have Baltimore Orioles with 77 wins. Kansas City Royals with 75 and the Minnesota Twins with 72.

All three of these teams have more wins than the Houston Astros.  But if you start looking at AL card wannabes, You've got beneath the Twibs, you've got the Boston Red Sox, the Detroit Tigers, the Seattle Mariners, and finally the Tampa Bay Rays. Well, there's more beneath them including the Blue Jays. So, you know, it kind of hurts.

I don't know. We'll see what happens. But to me the most exciting thing today is Is the parade that will be held in Lake Mary celebrating those young men who won the World Series. And, you know, there was a few things about them. You would see how entertaining they could be and how amped up they were about the game and about winning, but their sportsmanship did not allow them to.

Indulge above and beyond their opponent  as they won the game, you would see the other team fall to tears. Some of these players, especially one who who maybe could have kept the game going,  but he missed the ball. Actually, everyone missed the ball. There's nobody there on 1st lizard. No, I don't think so. 

And these all these young men are many of them are in tears. And you see players from the Lake Mary team, instead of jumping up and celebrating completely, they did some of that, but they also, you would find some of the members of the team going over there and trying to give some compassion to those players who had just lost, whether they put an arm around them, patting them on the back.

And even one of the coaches from Lake Mary was there as well doing that. So to me, while those young players had a great achievement, winning the World Series,  I would say their greatest achievement was in their humanity and compassion for their fellow opponent athlete. So kudos to all of them. And let's stop here and read off the names of all those young men.

I think we should give credit to them all.  The 12 players on the Lake LeMary Little League team, World Series champs.  12 players on the team Lake Mary Little League

• SS/2B/CF: Chase Anderson, 12 of Sanford
• P/OF: Christopher Chikodroff, 11, of Orlando
• OF/P/3B: Lathan Norton, 12, of Sanford
• 2B/3B: Hunter Alexander, 12, of Sanford
• SS/3B/P: JJ Feliciano, 12, Longwood
• OF/P: Jacob Bibaud, 12, Lake Mary, FL
• CF/P: Liam Morrisey, 12, Sanford
• P/OF: Luis Calo, 12, Sanford
• C/P/3B: Landon Bono, 12, Lake Mary
• UTIL: Garrett Rohozen, 12, Sanford
• 1B: DeMarcos Mieses, 11, Sanford
• 1B/C/P: Teraj Alexander, 12, Sanford

Congratulations all for winning the World Series, and thank you again for being the great humans that you were, sharing, you know, some compassion. Or your opponents. So that's pretty much it. What a thank you all again for joining us here at baseball biz. And I hope you celebrate baseball every day with your little leagues, your minor leagues, and your major league team.

The season's getting sharp, boys and girls, only 29 games left for the Rays and out of 162, it's getting down to it, just getting down to the nitty gritty. Hopefully we'll have Mat Germain back this week. Continue to follow him on x. com. You can find him at @Mat_Germain_ on Twitter

So thanks again for joining us here today on BaseballBiz On Deck this week. And we look forward to talking with you guys again.  Real soon.  Special thanks to XtakeRUX for the music, Rocking Forward.

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