Roger Mooney covers the Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.
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Posted May 25, 2009 by Marc Lancaster
Updated May 25, 2009 at 08:41 PM
CLEVELAND—Randy Choate’s Rays debut tonight marked his first big-league appearance since June 27, 2007, for the Diamondbacks against the Dodgers. A long time to wait for a veteran guy.
But when Reid Brignac threw the ball away on that Shin-Soo Choo grounder for an error, and Grant Balfour immediately replaced Choate, a rather unusual streak continued.
Choate only made two appearances for Arizona in 2007, on June 26 and June 27, and he didn’t retire a batter in either performance. He faced three guys and allowed three hits.
So if you add in what happened tonight, you have to go back to Oct. 1, 2006 to find the last time Choate actually recorded an out in a big-league game—Geoff Blum hitting into a 1-4-3 double play to end the fifth inning of Arizona’s game against San Diego on the final day of the season.
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Reader Comments
Por (Marty) on May 26, 2009 (Suggest removal)
Randy Choate is the best Friedman could come up with? A guy who hasn’t pitched
Suggest removalin the majors for years? All of the off-season signings have been a bust.
Meet the new management, same as the old management. Being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, knowing the secret handshake, an expensive education and being friends with the owner doesn’t mean you know how to run and build a winning franchise. Friedman should tell Sternberg to get off his wallet or sell the team.
Por (Frank Ferreri) on May 26, 2009 (Suggest removal)
There are times like this that we long to hear Lou Piniella screaming. This is one time where Joe should step out of character. Maybe he has behind closed doors. Who knows? However, that performance was a bad as it gets. Regarding Choate, to be fair, he got the ground ball.
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