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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay 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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Keppinger: “defense is defense” and some of his other thoughts since joining the Rays

Posted Jan 27, 2012 by Roger Mooney

Updated Jan 27, 2012 at 05:40 PM

ROGER MOONEY

New Rays infielder Jeff Keppinger, who today signed a one-year, $1.525 million deal with incentives, spoke to the Rays writers this afternoon.

Here is some of what he had to say:

On which positions he can play:
“I’m up for anything. I know there’s a lot of talk, people telling me I’m limited at playing certain positions, but I don’t feel that way. I go out and do the best that I can. If it’s something I can help out the team, then it’s something I look forward to doing.”

He has experience at second base, shortstop and third base, how about first base?
“Pretty much all my life I’ve played everywhere, including catcher. I don’t think that’s something I can do at the big league level, but basically defense is defense, catching the ball, throwing the ball. So I don’t really have any specific position that I would really pick over the other. I just do what I have to do to help the ball club.”

On his role this season:
“Talking with Joe (Maddon), he basically said there’s nothing really set. It’s kind of see how it’s going, see how the season’s going, see what the matchups are. If I fit in against certain righties I’ll play against certain righties. My numbers in my career have been good against lefties (.324 career batting average), so hopefully I’m in there against every lefty. That would be nice. They’re going to use me how they see fit.”

On being a bench player:
“I feel that’s kind of how my whole career has been. It’s always been something has happened because of an injury or maybe due to somebody not playing as well as the team had hoped, and that opened the door for me, and I took advantage of it, and it turned into a lot of starting time.”

On his career strikeout to walk ratio of 16.1, second-best among active players:
“I don’t know. It’s a good approach at the plate. I’m not a big guy, so I’m not a home run hitter so I don’t try to do too much. Basically, try to put the barrel on the ball.”